To be fair, US and European airspace is different and the European airspace tends (not always) to be more complex, and busier, and hence is more proceduarly based and you can't simulate that over here.
The DPE who gave me my FAA IR said that the FAA ATP is more like the JAA IR, as a rough reference.
What you have to rememeber is that the number of Private IRs is very low in europe(mainly due to cost) so the IR is geared up towards the commercial/airline flying world in mind.