This is a misconception IO. The vital bit you omit is that you need to have a Type Rating on a multipilot aircraft. The European system is more restrictive than the US one, in that it is harder to get an ATPL.
The US ATP can be done in two ways. The "GA" route, where you get 1500hrs and the various other hours requirements, the ATP written and then you take a check ride on a piston twin (or even single) just like any other check ride. Alternatively, you do a Type Rating. TRs are all to ATP standard, and when you pass a TR, if you meet the requirements for an ATP, the Examiner can issue you an ATP along with the Type Rating. This is absolutely equivalent to the EASA method - except the EASA method includes 3 additional criteria: you must have the MCC qualification, you must have a TR on a multipilot aircraft and you must have 500hrs of multicrew time.
Indeed, but this just leads to the question I was posing earlier, which is why not tie (in JAA-land) professional pilot status
to the ATPL?
Instead of tying it to the IR, which is what happens now and this is the "elephant in the room" that has always blocked any progress being made on a more accessible private IR.
I would also observe that while one needs the MCC TR for the JAA ATPL, this is going to be more or less automatic for anybody with a RHS job (and without a RHS job they have no chance of getting it anyway - short of self funding the MCC hours!). That person (CPL/IR) will already have the TR and can hardly fail to accumulate the other requirements eventually. In fact, in today's pilot job climate, they will accumulate them a lot sooner than the move to the LHS
That one can do a "GA ATPL" in the USA (I could do one in my TB20) just makes it even more admirable that the USA is happy with the ATPL as the "professional pilot hallmark", while the JAA ATPL (which is totally inaccessible to a GA pilot) is apparently not good enough for the same purpose over here.