The situation w.r.t. foreign IR recognition is utterly ridiculous ... I thought I was getting ripped off having to pay 4000 quid for my NZ-to-UK IR conversion back in '00, but it is utterly taking the p!ss to go and tell people with thousands of hours of IFR multi engine command time, that they have to go and blow off 12 thousand quid in order to receive 55 hours of compulsory dual on how to fly NDB holds before they can be deemed worthy of a JAA IR.
I'd be up for any protest that was being organised but I can't see it doing a blind bit of good - it's like the requirement they brought in that JAA trainers have their 'main place of business' in Europe. It's got zero to do with flight safety, and plenty to do with protecting European jobs (and by implication, European tax dollars). They want us to spend our training dollars in the UK, they don't want to sacrifice their cash cow by making the cost of flight training competitive with the rest of the civilised world, so they hold us all hostage by the simple method of making it so expensive to convert to UK licences that it's not viable to train elsewhere
