I believe it is a distortion of the market.
A couple of airlines discovered that they could reduce their wage costs and still comply with the letter of the law by making a widespread practice of strapping 200 hour licence holders into the right hand seat. Better still they could push their luck by getting these inexperienced co-pilots to pay for their training themselves. Provided the Captains continued to compensate for the experience shortfall in the cockpit and fingers crossed nothing went wrong, then more profit and bigger bonuses.
In order not to be commercially disadvantaged by this action, the practice spread through other carriers and in some West european countries is now almost universal in its acceptance. The previous sources of experienced co-pilots such as the military and smaller commercial operators will now find that their pilots are forced to reduce their expectations to the level of the 200 hour(ers) in order to compete in this new market.
Unfortunetaly it will take a serious incident to occur before certain regulatory authorities sit up and take notice, and even then it will be the insurance industry that is likely to correct this practice, proving once again that free markets abhor distortions