giloc if your understanding of the situation is correct, then part M is even more of an anti-safety bureaucratic pile of sh**t than even I might have thought.
The only option for people like me who up till now have done ALL the maintenance on our C of A aircraft, is to go to the EU member state with the lowest regulatory costs.
At present that seems to be France, and that is where I will go to renew my ARC. However if the French authorities take the same attitude as the CAA, then my aeroplane will become an ornament in my barn until sanity or a revolution removes this obscene paper mountain.