I dont know the answer to question (1)
One suggestion for completing quickly in Europe is to do a SEIR, assuming you already have a CPL its only 40 hours. The downside is that many schools (in my experience) do not have a SE simulator so you would have to do it all in the aircraft
Just a thought ..... a few people at the school I sometimes teach the IR at have done this under the same circumstances as you and then converted to MEIR later