Over the years we business/corporate operators have been inundated with regulation/rules that never applied to N-reg operators, putting us at a disadvantage. Proper operators don't mind rules and regulations if they are administered fairly across our industry, this ruling will make our industry a better place to operate in.
I highly doubt it will. All this will do is drive up the overall cost of aircraft ownership and operation, how on earth can that be a good thing?
The problem with all this EASA stuff as has been discussed over on Private Flying is that they have never really looked at
why the whole question of N-reg ever became an issue at all. People saw it as a way to
escape regulation because that regulation was costly and unnecessary. All this garbage about FTOs, Maintenance organisations etc that has been piled on the industry over the years drove people to keeping aircraft on the N-reg. EASA's approach from the outset was to just force everyone into the same straight jacket rather than addressing issues with EU regulations. Instead of demanding that everyone be held to the same ridiculous standards people should be looking at those standards in the first place.
As people quite rightly pointed out getting FAA licences was often done simply because they were needed to fly all these N-reg aircraft floating around in Europe. I've never understood this issue of people who did JAA licences holding a grudge against people who operate FAA; just because you have spent money on something that was ridiculously more expensive than an alternative does not mean that everyone should be forced to do the same. I hold both JAA and FAA multi-IRs and my view is that the whole JAR IR/ATPL thing should be rationalised so that it is cheaper and more accessible.
None of this local regulations stuff would matter if EASA were
reasonable about the regulation of private/business flying, particularly the issue of foreign licence conversion. People are only up in arms about it because of the costs/hassle involved.
Ultimately yes EASA should be allowed to set standards for permanently based operators in the EU but they sure as hell could be making life easier for people in the transition.