you may want to read that again because it does not say that.
OK I accept that the bit I quoted does not say that. But much better minds than mine have gone through the entire document(s) and are certain that it does apply to foreign regs (called "third country aircraft" in the EASA documents). There is a bit in there somewhere which I recall reading, concerning where the
operator is based, and if in the EU then the regs do apply. Let me see if I can dig out the page #.
and there are very few people doing that on a validation.
I agree. Probably more in the UK (which allows a G-reg to be flown VFR on any ICAO PPL) but it's not a real issue because PPL conversion is quite easy. And you can get a foreign CPL validated locally in most places if you have a relationship with a local commercial operator.