What is PPLIR membership worth for as a FAA instrument private pilot in EU ? Are you happy with the membership ?
IMHO PPL/IR Europe is worth supporting, for their reasonable membership fee. They are continuously working on behalf of private IFR GA. Nobody else in Europe is doing this. I am a member. Their membership includes Euro IRs, UK IMCRs, and the large % of FAA IRs which you see everywhere in Europe.
I am a member of US AOPA also (being an FAA CPL/IR and flying an N-reg plane). For this I get the US AOPA magazine, which is probably of comparable value to the PPL/IR Europe magazine (you can see past issues of the latter on pplir.org).
Contrary to what has been suggested on occassions, U.S. AOPA do a significant amount for European pilots - albeit indirectly.
A little while ago I was at a GA get-together in Athens. In one presentation, in the audience I recognised certain well known UK personalities, some (who evidently like their expensed lunches) snoring away happily in the warm temperatures... Anyway, one character from a well known EU aviation agency (whom I have met elsewhere since, and he had not changed) made an arrogant speech which left people wondering what planet he was on - basically along the lines of "we know what is best" but it was mostly nonsense. But he is a seasoned bruiser who knows his stuff, which is that if you make a very aggressive case, few people will bother to argue with you.
Then Phil Boyer (then head of US AOPA) stood up and said a little bit... about how things work in America. How they have GPS approaches at airports without a tower, etc. The European agency bunch
slinked off without a word, like cats, but very fast before anybody could ask them questions... Quite brilliant, I thought
So, don't underestimate the influence which a strong U.S. GA scene has over here. The Greek AOPA is certainly well clued up on how politics is woven into GA future.