EASA (or, more properly, the EU Regulation) has never permitted abridgement of a CPL course on the basis of an ICAO IR.
The relevant requirement in Appendix 3E to Part-FCL states, "Applicants holding a valid IR(A) shall be fully credited towards the dual instrument instruction time." However, GM1 FCL-005 states, "Whenever licences, ratings, approvals or certificates are mentioned in Part-FCL, these are meant to be valid licences, ratings, approvals or certificates issued in accordance with Part-FCL. In all other cases, these documents are specified." Therefore, since the Appendix does not specify an ICAO IR it means an EASA IR.
The fault lies not with EASA but with whoever misinformed you that abridgement was possible in the first place.