I live in Europe. I have appx 4000 hours total time and Type Ratings in B744, B747, LR-Jet and IA-Jet.
I have a FAA ATP. In late 2006, I began the process of taking all 14 JAA ATPL exams. 6 months later I passed all the exams. Then I got a JAR Class 1 medical which costs several hundred euros. Then I took a few hours training in a Seneca and took a checkride and received a ME/Comm/IR...JAR. Big deal. why? Because it is not the AtPL. If I want a JAA Atpl then the pilot has to do a checkride in a JaR part 25 aircraft or sim. (basically a multi-crew aircraft over 12,500 pounds). The JAA will not simply give you the Atpl because you have thousands of hours and type ratings on a FAA license. They don't care. I also had to fight for 4 months to convice them that I did not need to take a MCC course. That was difficult. There is no such thing as conversion!! I hate to hear this word, conversion! So, I looked at getting a type rating that I already had on my FAA license, i.e. Learjet 35. The people at Simuflite will tell you they are JAA approved and have JAA examiners...big deal....why? because they will put the type rating on your JAA ME/Comm/IR. They CANNOT issue an ATPL, only the JAA participating country's authority is able to issue the JAR FCL. Oh and oh yeah, this has to be done as a checkride in the actual aircraft. So I would have to rent a Learjet for a couple of hours to perform the exact same crap I could have done in the sim in the USA. Then you ask yourself, well why don't you just do the sim training in Europe...hahaha, because it will honestly cost 5 times as much just because it is in Europe and not the US...even though it is the same damn company, i.e. Simuflite. Incredible. JAA/ME/IR Comm pilots are a dime a dozen over here. Who cares. Companies want to see that you have an ATPL....whic you do not....so you are equal to the pilot with 200 hours in a Cessna 172. Oh and by the way, if you don not have at leat 500 hours in THE EXACT TYPE OF AIRCRAFT the company operates then you are out of luck...actually the European company will frown on your experience because they prefer "cadets" that they can manipulate and make pay for everything. An experienced FO is a liability not an asset. There are 2 paths today, a DE Captain with hundreds of hours in TYPE or a cadet with virtually no time. I'm telling you the truth and I wish more folks would wake up to the fact. Remember, there is no such thing as a FAA to JAA conversion, it is a lie. I know! You have to do everything from scratch all over again. There are some websites that say that if you have thousands of hours in a particular jet then you are exempt from completing all the exams, etc, etc. It is bs