There is an irony in the EU advocating the harmonisation of licensing rules across Europe as being a good thing and at the same time erecting a barrier to the movement of pilots across frontiers from outside the EU whilst adopting a stance which treats third country licences as so inferior that they are not worthy of being easily converted to an EASA licence.
These positions are mutually inconsistent and smack of the worst sort of protectionism. I suspect that many more people will in due course protest as the damaging consequences of these proposals become clearer and as it becomes apparent that many more current commercial and other operations are affected in a way which has neither been forseen or intended. Although this debate has to a large extent be conducted in terms of "N" registered pilots and aircraft I am sure that many other non EU countries will be affected by these regulations. The effect on non EU European countries such as Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, for example, is not clear.