And you can only do the JAA IR in Europe.
Not true.
There are two schools approved by the UK CAA to conduct IR training in the USA - one of which doesn't actually use their approval and has a bad rep anyhow.
The test is done in Europe but the training is done in the USA. With EASA there is no minimum training in Europe just the test - but I think both do 15 sim/aircraft in the UK meaning 35 hours done in the USA - normally all aircraft and cheap multi instruction too.