This advert also appears on page 7 of today's Daily Telegraph - the favourite digest of Atlantic Barons at 30W.
To understand a little of this long story, please refer to
www.jaa.nl - the website of the Joint Aviation Authorities. This is the consortium of European & near neighbour authorities who have published common regulations for the general running of aviation in their countries. Unfortunately common flight time limitations (FTLs) for aircrew could not be agreed, so subpart Q of JARs says that each country chooses its own. In the case of UK this was CAP 371 which translated in our Ops Manual to Chapter 7 of Part A. UK FTLs are based on report time, number of sectors to be flown and whether or not acclimatised to the local time zone. Other countries in Europe - Italy for example - allowed considerably longer duty days.
Despite considerable medical evidence and exhaustive research, the JAA have adopted a very dubious approach which most airline unions believe to be wrong, hence the adverts.
I hope this summary - all from memory - will be a starting point for some more informed comment
Cheers, Y