Depends on whether you see these things as cock-up or conspiracy.
Normally I'd say that these things would be down to cock-up and a lack foresight by the regulators.
In this case I'm not so sure. There was a mechanism for dealing with foreign licences and ratings in JAR-FCL which appears to have been ignored or the consultation process has been subverted by the training industry. The onus now appears to be on an ATO to assess what training you need, then it's training as required and a full set of exams. Of course they have no financial interest in what they assessing you for so everything will be fine. Either that or they've looked at the Japanese and Chinese approach to licencing foreigners and seen the way forward.
It's also probably nothing to do with any protectionist instincts in the EU. Nothing at all.
