Cos
I'm not sure if the ATPL written exams do replace the CPL's, someone more up with JAR regs would have to comment, it's just that under the 'old' rules (CAA) CPL exams virtualy became redundent due to people being able to take the ATPL's without first doing BCPL and then CPL exams. You could still do just CPL's but virtually nobody did hence the training establishments stopped supporting them with groundschool courses/notes.
Before you dismiss the idea try to find out if it is still possible to study for and sit CPL exams, you never know, but I still say that you are not going to make the time savings that you were thinking of even if you could do just CPL's. Also, in the long run it makes sense therefore to just go straight for ATPL's which will undoubtably save you money in the long run (when you come to upgrade your CPL's to ATPL's you will have to relearn a great deal of material, hence more time)
Hope this puts things more in context, and anyone else care to comment about CPL's under European Regs?
PP