We have now travelled some distance 'off thread' and to be honest have left me confused.
Are we proving that there is no such thing as a 'common' European licence despite the Eurocrats efforts to make it so?
European countries have spent much of history at war with each other and I do not see things changing with EASA/JAR etc. Each country will pull for its own benefit and lodge its own differences from the 'standard'.
Add in a registration and licence outside of Europe and everything descends into a farce of grey areas.
I do not see that any state, European or otherwise, will get involved in the legalities of this particular accident. No third party is invloved waiting for legal clarity before jumping in for compensation.
This poor guy who had been trained to fly, had a licence issued by someone and flying an aircraft registered somewhere has come to an un-timely end and we are all debating the legalities of flying just inside French airspace, or not.
How about a separate thread, or better still a separate room, where you can all go and bang your heads together in an attempt to unify the regulatory authorities of the planet.
This subject is so old I am sure that God had an FAA/IR as a flag of convenience.