How does the spanish situation stand then, are they in breach of jaa/jar?
It is not possible to be 'in breach' of JARs as they are only Requirements and not Regulations. It is the case that the national law of most member states prevents that state from complying with one part or another of JARs, which is why the move to EASA regulation is seen by some as a step forward. The fact remains that if a member state does not conduct itself in accordance with JARs, the other states are not
obliged to accept its training, licences, ratings and so on. That does not mean that the UK CAA
will refuse to accept the training for an IR in Spain just because a night qualification is not a pre-requisite for the course - but it would be fully justified in refusing should it choose to do so.
I know many people who are working who got JAR licences in the States and then did the IR in Europe
Apart from the fact that nobody 'got JAR licences in the States', this is hardly relevant to M-J's point. All JAA licence training in the US is approved by a JAA member state, which will issue the licence, just as though the training was done at a FTO within that state. However, there have been examples where certain states have refused to accept training completed in the US for type and instrument ratings and have refused to add the relevant ratings to their licences. The UK has a reputation for accepting almost anything in the way of training in other states but, even so, there are examples where they have refused to add ratings to UK issued JAA licences because the training has not been carried out in accordance with JAR-FCL.