If it was not for the powerful, well organised and well managed US AOPA, and the long precedent in the USA for GA being used for real travel, I would think that their "sports pilot license" (which doesn't need an aviation medical, provided you have not actually failed an aviation medical previously) is a bad idea because it is the thin end of a wedge which might result in exactly that separation, whose eventual outcome is the pushing of all GA into a VFR-only ghetto in which the only viable aviation activity is £100 burger runs or, for a suitably eccentric retired person, flying a microlight from the UK to Kathmandu against all the odds.
One of the greatest challenges in Europe, for supporters of "private IFR", is how to counter the loud cry of the "professional pilot lobby" that everybody sharing the same airspace must have the same papers, and their aircraft must meet the same requirements.
On any closer examination, that requirement has a poor logical basis but it is emotionally very convincing and a lot of people have bought into it, both in ignorance and because it suits the grinding of their particular axes.
The preservation of IFR capability, fully ICAO, is a cornerstone of maintaining utility value in GA, without which it will end up as a farm strip activity.