We all expected that they would fight it with any legal and illegal means but now it’s out how they do it.
SERA.5015 b) allows the states to specify IFR minimum altitudes. Germany specifies it as such that it’s always outside of G unless part of a procedure. Nasty but probably legal.
PS: Don’t compare IFR in G in Germany to UK — Germany has E everywhere, just the lowest 2000ft or so are G so this prevents official IMC flying from/to VFR airfields. Z/Y flights are commonly done this way, that’s an established gray area in Germany.
…that’s an established gray area…
When you fly visually below VFR minima you are not in some grey area, but simply commit a violation of rules. Over the years I have known quite a few guys who were carried out of that grey area on stretchers. Of course now with more modern avionics and improved and/or synthetic vision it is technically safer to perform this kind of flight. On the other hand, it is not part of the training (anywhere?), the avioncs involved is not intuitive – as has been discussed here in many threads – and due to the low altitude the margin for errors is narrow.
I am talking about VFR/IFR rule changes (pickup) where you have to remain VMC until passing the MVA. In reality it is not done this way. IMC flying below the MSA is not very smart, I was not talking about that.
And please don’t claim that German pilots are too stupid to do what UK pilots are allowed to do and actually do… 
And please don’t claim that German pilots are too stupid to do what UK pilots are allowed to do and actually do…
I only ever once trained a pilot from the UK and he is a real smart guy. I trained a lot pilots from Germany many of which only wanted to be pilots because it only takes one third as long as any other professional education and daddy was paying for the bills. Many of those were quite stupid (and/or completely uninterested in aviation). So my personal statistics would indeed confirmed your assumption 
And regarding the other thing: in most parts of Germany, MSA and the lower limit of controlled airspace are roughly equivalent, so flying IFR OCAS would mean ”below MSA“ in many cases. Most parts of the UK have a much lower MSA, so a direct comparison is not really possible.
In Germany, the lowest IFR altitude is the minimum radar vectoring altitude, which is practice is 500-1000ft above the floor of controlled airspace, so where Class E starts at 2,500ft above ground (which is the default, closer to airports it can go down to 1000 ft above ground), means that IFR can only start at 2,500-3,000 ft above ground, 2.5 to 3 times the minimum IFR altitude.
Because this is manifestly silly this is probably the most broken rule in IFR flight in Germany.
And yet nobody got killed or injured breaking that rule. EVER.
People get killed when they try to approach airfields well below any sensible approach minima. For example, the jet that recently hit a power pylon approaching Trier was completely legal in 20k+ visibility in Class G airspace until he entered the layer of valley fog in the descent. The two separate incidents where aircraft crashed short of the runway at night at Egelsbach both probably entered low fog layers / patches in the descent, or got sucked into a “black hole” when descending in VMC. And so on.
Thanks Cobalt. It is impotant to point out what is safe and what is legal.
In the US, flight below the minimum IFR enroute altitude is done all the time for departures and approaches. Most of this is accomplished in class E airspace, but when operating in and out of a non towered airport, one must transit thru class G airspace on departure and on an approach. Although we don’t get a clearance that applies while in the class G, we are expected to have a clearance in hand prior to launching that authorizes the flight into class E airspace. During the climb phase, the pilot is responsible for terrain and obstacle avoidance until they are at the minimum IFR altitude or are receiving radar vectors. In cases where radar services are not available during the climb to altitude, ATC will ask the pilot if they can maintain their own terrain and obstacle clearance. If they can, they are then issued a clearance, if not, the controller asks the pilot to state intentions and will not issue the clearance.
And the US system is eminently sensible, given that (a) low-level Class E exists and (b) you are assured a service.
The German situation is that the rules prohibit ATC to issue ANY clearance for the lowest 500ft of class E airspace when climbing into it from class G airspace. So even if you are airborne, in perfect VMC under a 2,900ft ceiling over the sea, with controlled airspace starting at 2,500ft the MRVA will be 3,000ft, and ATC can not issue you an IFR clearance to climb to 3,000ft. So everyone flies illegally from 2,500ft (class E base) to 3,000ft (MRVA).
So everyone flies illegally from 2,500ft (class E base) to 3,000ft (MRVA).
Which is a solution that works perfectly well, proven for more than 40 years and practised daily. However, not a solution I commonly associate with the legal and administrative framework of Germany and hence a shame. SERA was a chance to fix this for good and they have let it pass.
My VFR airfield in Germany (EDML) ist in 1300 ft MSL and you get an IFR clearance at 3300 ft MSL (MRVA) taking off from there.
I try not to break those rules if the celing is really too low. But if the clouds are in 3000 or 2800 … well. And there’s the possibility to fly VFR to Munich or Augsburg (EDMA) and use their Missed Approach Procedure to get an IFR Clearance. Too complicated, so I did that once with an instructor only.
