This has been going on for decades. All major and mid-size countries are involved and they all do it. And everyone has known about this for decades, but did not make an issue of it.
What's changed?
What's changed is that Obama is not a normal President. His goal is to arrange the decline of the power, influence and economy of the United States. They all recognize that Obama is a weak, unreliable, back-stabbing, unserious leader, who's putting the US economy and dollar at risk.
These are huge threats to rest of the world, especially our allies. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda all see this too and see this as a huge opportunity to expand their own power and influence. Putin and Merkel were named as more powerful than Obama
We have 3 1/2 years left of Obama. It'll take another 4 or more years for the US to recover. So we are talking another decade like the 1930's and the rise of the dictators. Our former allies are scrambling trying to come up with ways to protect themselves and looking to new partners and arrangement. The Egyptians are turing to the Saudis, Gulf States and Russia. The Germans are eyeing Russia.
If the US isn't a partner anymore, then it makes sense to weaken them further and using the NSA is a cheap way to do it.
But it's not about the spying.
“They all recognize that Obama is a weak, unreliable, back-stabbing, unserious leader, who’s putting the US economy and dollar at risk.”
Not for nothing, our allies aren’t concerned about this because of their altruism. Their economies rely on ours to survive and our military strength is their military strength. If the United States were to suffer an economic, political, or social collapse due to Obama’s “fundamental transformation”, the entire Free World would collapse with it.