Unfortunately you need a type rating instead. And those aren't trivial in terms of training commitment & costs.
Indeed. Especially in EASA-land.
Not that I believe this would translate into concrete action but there is a lot of fear stacked up among the regulators and associated gravy train riders, of VLJs. I've been to both Eurocontrol and UK ATC (West Drayton and Swanwick) presentations where this was voiced, along the lines of "thousands of VLJs clogging up the skies" etc. And this was years after the "VLJ dream" was dead and buried. One speaker claimed the Germans would demand an ATPL for any SE jet (which is kinda hard... how will you get the 500hrs in a multi pilot airplane
) and another one claimed they would ban SP jets from their airspace.... then one old boy in the audience sat up and asked what will happen to all the Citation 1s
But in the current climate (vis the N-reg debacle) it may be better to not push this... especially if the said jet is 1999kg
And if it isn't, it's going to cost a packet more to fly in Europe.
I've never believed there was a latent market for privately flown VLJs. All people I personally know who fly a SE TP are very smart pilots who know all the figures exactly and they would not ditch their present capability (short runways, load, etc).
If it was going to work anywhere it would work in the USA but even there it failed totally.
The money is still there and always has been, but a VLJ offers little over a TP.
And you can buy an Eclipse now; apparently quite well sorted too.