The question arises; why these drastic changes in the face of opposing evidence that they are not for the best? You say politics, I say commerce. Yes, the 2 are intertwined, and there must be some lobyists in the background, namely the airline management. There is no way any ignorant politician or even most gutless CAA's would have sat down and spent hours of discussion to come up with these changes. OK, there is a will to have an even playing field in the EU, true, but it would seem the discussions must have had input from only one side, the commercial one.
I've seen it before where rules were bent to accommodate the problems and make them go away. Dispensations were given by CAA's in the face of airlines crying poverty.
It's an interesting comparison: an airline is not making as much profit as it would like. Solution; introduce a baggage charge; later a credit card charge and a check-in charge. Still not enough, so add a wheel-chair levy: still not enough so increase any of the charges at random, but slowly and spaced out 1 euro = >50m extra dosh. Easy peasy. Little by little the pax get used to it and soak it up. Now there is a calamity insurance charge-mandatory = 140m euros extra. It's a money printing mint. Profits down, charges up just enough to not knock the pax figures. No real change in the product.
So now there is a shortage of pilots and airlines are strapped for cash. Lets allow an 11% increase in productivity for no extra pay. Wow, that will allieviate some of the pilot shortage and help the cash problem. 2 birds one stone. Where will this slipperey slope lead to?