A good idea may be to do the FAA CPL/IR and also do the JAA ATPL's.. This way you will have gotten the hard part of the FAA to JAA licence conversion out of the way early. Then after you have built some hours (maybe with that first job in africa!) you will be able to come back to the EU pass a couple of check flights do a MCC course and find some work with a airline in the EU !
Compared to the flying a ATPL course is cheap, and the most time consuming part of FAA to JAA licence conversion.
hope it helps good luck