Hello,
I did this about seven years ago, moving from the States to Europe and going through the whole conversion thing. Good thing you are getting the EU passport as basically everything is a no-go without it. Virtually every European airline requires an "unlimited right to live and work throughout the EU/EEA." The only way to get that is with an EU passport. Everything else comes with restrictions, such as being tied to one country, or only the country your spouse resides in, or is time limited, etc.
The conversion process is actually not that hard, but finding a country that understands it may be difficult. The UK had everything well laid out, but as stated, Brexit has made that a mess and it looks like EASA will no longer recognize the UK licenses. Ireland has a good reputation for handling the conversions.
I cannot remember the exact requirements, but I believe if you have an ICAO ATPL, in excess of 3,000 hours, and a valid type rating and 500 or more hours on that aircraft, you can self certify for the 14 theory exams. Also be aware that mot countries require a separate radio exam on top of the 14 theory exams and sometimes it is hard to get that information. I do not believe Ireland requires the separate radio license, and Denmark will issue it based on passing an ICAO English exam. After you do all that, you can get arrange a skills test on the aircraft type in which you are type rated. Your license will be issued by the country which holds your medical records, but you can do the theory exams and skills test in any EASA country and then have the results transferred. For example I live in DK, so I did the medical exam in DK, but did the theory exams in the UK and the skills test in Germany. My license was issued by Denmark.
As for where to do the conversion, as mentioned, the UK used to be a great place to get it done, but Brexit has messed that up. Ireland has a good reputation and I have found/heard the Scandinavian countries to be easy to work with as well (Denmark has been easy and I hear Sweden and Norway are good to work with as well). As a general rule, avoid Germany for a few reasons. First of all their medical record laws make it virtually impossible to transfer records, which will make transferring a license difficult should the need arise in the future. The second issue with Germany is they seem to be stuck in the dark ages when it comes to paperwork processing. I recently flew with a German FO who had his flight bag stolen, along with his license and medical. He was grounded for over a month while he faxed (yes faxed, email was not acceptable) copies of identity documents and logbooks, and waited for a new license to be mailed back to him. The southern European countries have a reputation for taking a very long time to process paperwork too, but I have no experience with them. Apparently the Icelandic CAA is also very easy to work with, and very efficient.
Good luck!
Last edited by NEDude; 20th Aug 2019 at 11:34.