'Almost certain that a departure and arrival could be conducted under VFR' is wholly unacceptable. I invite the originator of this nonsense to define, to the satisfaction of any legel weasel, what is meant by 'almost certain'....
Beagle
Almost certain I would guess would be based on the fact that your departure must be in VFR conditions plus a margin to return in VFR conditions.
This would all be based around actuals and TAFS.
Your arrival would have to be forecast as VFR Conditions in the TAFS as would your diversion airfield plus the relevant time margins to remain that way.
The reference to "Almost certain" is simply that nothing to do with weather is ever certain.
My guess is that this would be based around actuals and TAFS which could easely be placed in a legal form.
I could see them concocting a special emergency for the rating where if the almost certain failed to materialise you would be radar vectored onto an ILS and airfield where there were high minima. You would be a special case and treated that way.
For me the stupidity of all this is the fact that you will have to do all the IR studies and exams. This is the very thing that has put working pilots off a european IR.
The flight test is a piece of cake but months and months if not years of ground studies dealing with irrelevant material is the main reason pilots run off to the FAA IR instead.
Pace