No, in the UK the CAA will not give you a PPL based upon your FAA or ICAO PPL....
.... because you don't need one at all - you get full Private priviledges with the aircraft type/class privilges of your ICAO licence with no additional paperwork. The only limitation is that an ICAO/FAA IR only confers UK IMC priviliges (therefore higgher approach minima and no Class A allowed).
Can't comment on the other European countries as licence recognition is a matter for national legislation - it is not harmonised via the JAA.
So there is lack of equivilency. An FAA certificate holder can just show up in at a UK club, hire a G-reg aircraft and fly here*, but I now can't hire N-reg in the US off the back of my JAA (or for that matter SA) licence.
*obviously the club may have its own checkride requirements but that happens the world over.
Last edited by foghorn; 20th Jul 2002 at 21:04.