Thank you very much for your replies so far, this is extremely helpful (although probably not what I hoped to hear).
Additional hours to get EASA IR test ready: Meldex, I am surprised that you seem to believe more than 10 hours instruction (+10 hours solo IR(R)) would be required for an average pilot to go from FAA IR test standard to EASA IR test standard. What do you think is realistic? 20 hours instruction on average?
Regaring the currently required 50 hours PIC for an IR conversion: It seems that some schools in the US allow you to log PIC time during (dual) IR instruction for FAA purposes (e.g. relevant if you don’t have 25 hours cross country PIC aparently which are a prerequisite for many of the FAA IR courses offered). This would mean just having done the 40 hours IR course at minimum you’d already have 80% of it done anyhow. However, I guess this would not be acceptable in the same way to the CAA?
On condensed IR courses: How much time do people think an FAA IR rating will take at the minimum if you really push it (just the flight training, assuming you have done all the theory exams upfront)? Compared to that how much time would an EASA IR rating take at the minimum realistically? How weather-dependent is IR training, I'd guess a bit less so than basic PPL training? Looking at how short it took me to get the EASA PPL I might be a relatively fast learner but then IR training might be a different animal all together...
Thanks again!