A lot of these debates bring out old establishment attitudes to how people should be trained.
The ICAO IR minimum training (i.e. dual flying) requirement is 10 hours.
The FAA IR makes it 15.
The JAA IR makes it 50/55 (SE/ME).
Ideally, the whole thing should be competence based, and that would make most comparisons irrelevant because it is quite possible for an IMC Rated pilot, with some extra instruction especially stuff on icing and other type specific stuff, to be fully capable of flying airways routings. I did my IMCR in about 22 hrs, then flew for ~ 3 years on it boring holes in UK Class G (not to mention boring unofficial holes in all kinds of overseas clouds
) and when I started training for the FAA IR my very first flight was a 700nm airways flight across Europe which I planned 100% myself and flew myself, with the RHS instructor doing practically nothing.
A year or so later, the FAA IR legalised what I was doing for solo flight but nothing actually changed. I didn't learn anything of significance to present-day European IFR which is a purely RNAV point to point navigation exercise using an IFR GPS.
If you have the IMCR then you should be able to fly any procedure for which there is a plate. After all, you just need to read the plate
It's all there in plain English.
Then you need just a little bit more operational knowledge, like working out valid Eurocontrol routes, icing avoidance strategies, etc (most of this isn't taught in any IR) and you are good to go out there.
Pretending that one actually needs 50/55hrs regardless of competence is nuts.
But one cannot say this to the old guardians of the IR
They are stuck in the olde world where a proof of a real man is how long he has spent in the training factory.
However, I think there will be interesting developments over the next few years, for private IFR in Europe.