Criticising European bureaucrats is popular in all fields, not just aviation. And, of course, some of the criticism will be justified. But, as someone still training to get my PPL and wondering if the whole exercise will be futile, it's really difficult to know how much this stuff about EASA is serious. Are they really intent on curtailing GA to the point where it ceases to exist in Europe - I'm wondering why they would do that. Or are they introducing measures which will be a nuisance but not show-stoppers.
Comparing this, for example, to the debates about health & safety gone mad, I observe plenty of daft health & safety measures (like being self-employed working from home and having to do a health & safety assessment on my own house), but in practice they don't often get to the stage of actually stopping activities. I know some schools get a bit over-zealous, but on the whole, life seems to go on, and we just see more idiotic signs and disclaimers.
So, should I merely expect to see annoying but bearable lunacy (perhaps combined with one or two sensible measures), or is my PPL going to be useless before I've even got going?
Reading this forum, I find this issue much more worrying and more likely to dissaude me from continuing than any number of exams, cost issues etc. When I started, I guessed it would be expensive and cumbersome. I thought that was the price to pay for safety in the sky and for taking part in a minority pasttime. But I didn't think that political hectoring would be the biggest barrier.
Put it another way, how many of you would still commend someone like me to get started flying in the UK, assuming I have a reasonable tolerance of a few formalities, exams, checks and fuel increases?