What the airlines want they get, which presumably is no amateur pilots flying IFR anywhere near them
That view, apparently held by many committee members, shows their narrow knowledge of how flying works.
You can fly IFR/airways, from the UK to say Poland, Italy, etc i.e. a ~ 800nm flight, at say FL100-FL200, and there is very little chance you will get visual with another aircraft. Not counting contrails at FL350 of course, or some 747 so far away the type can barely be made out (10-20nm?). The chances of seeing another GA aircraft are close to nil. I've done IFR trips as far as Crete and not seen anything whatsoever enroute, once having left the UK Class G free-for-all airspace.
There are 3 reasons for this: piston/turboprop GA flies in the great void below FL250 in which jets don't operate except in terminal phases; you cannot get a route out of the Eurocontrol computer which takes you close or through a busy terminal area (e.g. overhead Frankfurt at 4000ft....); ATC separate everybody with most generous distances anyway.
I would happily take anybody for such a flight, provided they buy the beer at the far end, and give them a tenner for every plane they can identify the type of, and £50 for every GA plane they spot at all 
The "crowded airspace" is a myth perpetuated by the same old crowd who have never flown GA from A to B for real. Airline pilots are particularly bad at knowing anything about this because most of them are sick of IFR and if they do fly GA they fly basic rag and tube / aero types.
Are we going to get a general reduction in knowledge and skills requirements across the board for the IR so that it more closely resembles the FAA/IR?
Not in the foreseable future. EASA is taking over JAR/FCL whole, with minimal changes. They have stated that for political reasons they cannot play with stuff like the IR requirements until EASA FCL is in place and then they can do another review.
It's even possible that private IFR (i.e. a JAA/EASA
PPL/IR) in CAS is in danger in the long term. Should this happen (unlikely, IMHO) then the only future-proof thing for the private pilot is a JAA/EASA
CPL/IR. The JAA/EASA ATPL is the ultimate ticket but will never be achievable because of the MCC requirement.
Obviously, the above para is meaningful only if the FAA/N-reg option and the achievable FAA IR are killed off for European based pilots, and a discussion of how exactly that might be achieved (if it happens at all) is something else... I cannot see a workable enforcement method for it, within the bounds of ICAO and international politics.
"FAA" is a bit of a dirty word in EASA at present. Not because of John Wayne cowboy movies, Macdonalds, or the usual left wing European intellectuals disliking U.S. foreign policy
but because of the FAA playing hardball on the big stuff e.g. airline route negotiations. The private GA stuff is unfortunately wrapped up in all the big stuff. We are just one little bit of the big picture.