Bluskis,
WRT CAA "...I hope they,(the CAA) are interested enough in aviation to be Pprune readers..."
All I can say is they are, and they do. But don't expect official comments from CAA (or any other regulatory body) here.
Especially if you're not sure what the question is
Now if I wanted to pursue this as much as others, I would be looking for far better ammunition...
The only comparison anyone has offered is the FAA route.
In reality-land, there isn't much interaction with other countries rules and regulations for an American IR pilot flying IFR in the US.
(You can fly for many hours and still be in the same state - let alone have crossed several international boundaries)
What do they do in other ICAO non FAA countries - like Australia, New Zealand, South Africa for example.
How much does an IR cost there? How many hours to do it? What are the currency requirements?
What about the rest of Europe? How do you get an IR in France, Sweden, The Netherlands? What are their currency requirements? (Are they the same as JAR?)
Germany hasn't adopted JAR, so what do you do to get an IR there and keep it current?
Do any other countries have an IMC rating? (I know some have similar) What does it allow?
What about VFR "on top" as a French vanilla PPL allows.
Airspace and airway classifications - are they the same outside UK? I don't believe they are, especially below FL245.
What about IFR in the open FIR - UK allows this on vanilla PPL, no-one else does
AFAIK.
Should you be asking for the transition level to be uniform throughout Euroworld - that would cut about 5 hours study from the PPL/IR syllabus if it was raised to FL180
I think it's worth pursuing this, but you have to look at a slightly bigger picture than "it's too expensive and I don't like IR renewals every year"
FWIW
Russell