maybe is it that in the USA flying is a lot easier and you have a lot of infrastructure there for your advantage, while in Europe general aviation is neglected? Just an opinion.
It depends on what you mean by "easier".
There are two parts to flying.
There is the preflight/operational stuff, and there is the actual flying.
The former is significantly easier in the USA.
The latter is the same everywhere, of course.
If you do a JAA IR, the former is barely taught, so candidates don't even know how to develop and file a Eurocontrol flight plan across Europe. They don't know about airport PPR, Customs PNR, all the little crappy bits one has to do. The training and the IRT are almost wholly concentrated on the latter.
If you do an FAA IR, the former is taught to the extent required in the USA, and you still can't get about in Europe without some extra learning.
But I don't think a reduction in the operational stuff (in the USA) makes the flying any easier. How could it? IFR is IFR. I did both IRs so have seen both sides.
I have been hearing rumors about EASA/JAA or whoever that they will make it harder for people to convert licenses, etc... in the end not much seems to happen.
Re FAA IR to JAA/EASA IR conversion, the present 15hr conversion route becomes a bit of an unknown after April 2012, to be replaced with
Applicants for Part–FCL licences already holding at least an equivalent licence, rating or certificate issued in accordance with Annex 1 to the Chicago Convention by a third country shall comply with all the requirements of Annex I to this Regulation, except that the requirements of course duration, number of lessons and specific training hours may be reduced.
The credit given to the applicant shall be determined by the Member State to which the pilot applies on the basis of a recommendation from an approved training organisation.
(from EASA FCL May 2011 Article 7 page 6 here)
which basically means that the 15-hr conversion route may be replaced with another 15-hr route, or something shorter, or longer, and it may vary from one country to another.
This sounds like good news, except that few FTOs will want to deprive themselves of income by offering something shorter... And no shortcut is proposed around the JAA exams; even a 20,000hr FAA CPL/IR has to sit the whole lot if he wants a JAA PPL/IR.
Exception: an ICAO ATPL holder who has 2000+ hours on a Part 25 aircraft can now and will be able to convert directly to a JAA ATPL, without sitting the exams. The fact that an FAA ATPL is reasonably accessible to a private pilot (SE or ME) with 1500hrs TT (100hrs night) is rendered worthless in this context. An ICAO CPL/IR with any amount of experience also confers no advantage under current proposals.
However it appears that the existing 15hr conversion route will just continue - if only because nobody in the training business knows what to replace it with
