Sorry; but I don't see that your "civil servants" are necessarily far off the mark.
Shouldn't the check ride 'situation' and the approval be at he discretion of the check pilot.
Let me see: a check ride at 90-95% MAUW at say, 250'ASL (where I live) and OAT -5 to -10 'proves' competency. Now take the same helicopter and a couple of months later, move it to 3000', put it on floats, OAT +25 drop 100 kg of payload; you now have a different animal and the MAUW 'demonstration' proves SQUAT. Density altitude is much more of a killer than a couple of hundred kilos.
My example is not untypical of Canada and I would assume that it would also apply across Europe.