Happily you are wrong. Under EASA you will be able to keep yourself annually current by faxing your renewed rating to your adopted EASA member state and therefore not fall foul of the expired license/IR/and the 5 groundschool subjects.
Note that member states will still have differences under EASA, despite it trying to achieve a level playing field. The CAA at present have NO plans to recognise Gulf ratings but other EASA participating states do.
You will need to change your JAR-FCL to an EASA license and apply to a member state that will recogonise your Gulf rating. Depending upon the state that you chose there are a couple of requirements to fulfil but this is all possible despite what you think.
You will be limited to A6 aircraft but if your Gulf examiner also happens to keep his EASA TRI/E ticket current then you get the best of both worlds!
I can confirm this to be the case having spoken to several receptive authorities
