I don't know how much of Europe has these restrictions for helicopters, but it use to be just as bad in France, where you required a Helisurface Permit to land anywhere other than at an airoport or licensed heliport. The permit used to be valid for just 6 months and used to take 4-5 months to arrive, so it only had about a month or two of its validity left by the time you got it! I don't know if the situation has changed, but it looks as if it's just not worth having a helicopter in a lot of European countries if these are the sorts of bureaucratic rules they have. We may complain about the CAA, but at least we haven't got the draconian rules some other European countries have to put up with.
