During an exchange of mails with my licensing authority, they claim that my medical must be issued by the same state as the license and refer to ARA.MED.130 (a) (3) to support their claim. As far as I can see, that describes the contents of the license (which by the way the FR medical does not follow):
ARA.MED.130 Medical certificate format
The medical certificate shall conform to the following specifications:
(a) Content
(1) State where the pilot licence has been issued or applied for (I),
(2) Class of medical certificate (II),
(3) Certificate number commencing with the UN country code of the State where the pilot licence has been issued or applied for and followed by a code of numbers and/or letters in Arabic numerals and latin script (III),
(4) Name of holder (IV),
(5) Nationality of holder (VI),
(6) Date of birth of holder: (dd/mm/yyyy) (XIV)
So the question is: do I really need to get my medical from the same country as my license?
I understand (following my recent medical difficulties) that the medical must be issued by the state that issues the license but the exam may be done by any licensed AME – his report is then sent to the state of issue for a decision.
Agree with Peter. Under EASA rules, all your licenses, medicals, ratings and whatnot should be administered by one single *AA.
There is a SOLI (State of License Issue) transfer process which allows you to transfer your current (medical) records to the authority of your choice.
You can only do the transfer process if you hold a valid medical though.
I have just renewed my medical in France for the first time since leaving the UK. I was told last year by my UK AME that I would definitely need a CAA medical because I have a CAA licence, which I assumed would have required a day trip back to the UK just for the medical, but a local AME in France was happy to issue me with a DGAC medical certificate. He told me he will send the paperwork to the DGAC in Paris who will forward it on to the CAA so eventually I will be back in the UK system.
To answer the original question, it depends on your definition of “get”. My medical is issued by the DGAC but it is still administered by the CAA: a delightful bureaucratic destinction for which I am eternally greatful.
Thanks for your replies. I guess it makes sense that the issuing NAA also administers the medical. The legal reference given to me by the NAA is obviously wrong though. Does anyone have an idea of the correct one?
I recall reading the original proposal (medicals maintained by the country of license issue) and it specifically mentioned this was to keep a lid on “medical tourism”.
It enables the pilot’s national CAA to more easily reject medicals from places they don’t like. At the time, Hungary was hugely popular for initial medicals, for example. The “problem” is created by the rule that (for example – colour vision) you are allowed to fail each of the 4 or so possible methods only once per lifetime, so if you can find an AME who doesn’t keep a record of a failure, you can have another go. Obviously a UK AME would never let you do that but “elsewhere” it was possible. Since most of the men (it’s mostly men) with CV issues can see most colours perfectly fine in real life, having a second go makes it possible to get it. You can also practice, etc. The W-H Lantern test can be practiced with some carefully selected LEDs 
I know several pilots who got initials (and also other paperwork) in Hungary, facilitated by Hungary’s ambiguous position on JAA compliance, allowing some stuff to be accepted directly and some to be grandfathered because nobody could read Hungarian I was in Budapest talking to some airline CPL/IRs and they described some routes for me, but in the end I didn’t bother and did the 7-exam FAA to JAA IR conversion.
I don’t know if there is/was much tourism in renewal medicals, but obviously if you have a “very friendly” AME somewhere then you will use him until he drops dead.
The requirement for one *AA to hold all your records, I think, stems from EASA FCL.015:
d. An application for the issue of a licence for another category of aircraft, or for the issue of further ratings or
certificates, as well as an amendment, revalidation or renewal of those licences, ratings or certificates shall be
submitted to the competent authority which initially issued the pilot licence, except when the pilot has requested
a change of competent authority and a transfer of his licensing and medical records to that authority.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:311:0001:0193:EN:PDF
I can’t quickly find the similar requirement for your medical, but I’m pretty sure they must be in there as well.
It now turns out that the French actually sent my NAA the medical paperwork in 2004 and 2006, but since then nothing. I called the DGAC med center and it appears that my paperwork was “archived” in such a way that it cannot be retrieved. 
Peter wrote:
It enables the pilot’s national CAA to more easily reject medicals from places they don’t like.
Upon my last visit, my AME told me, that right now the UK CAA does not recognise German medicals (probably as a consequence of that suicidal Germanwings accident last year). The official reason is that the foreign aviation authorities have no right to access the pilot’s medical records due to privacy laws.
So better investigate with your national authority (or the one which issues your licence) before getting a medical in another country.
And regarding Hungary: One of our pilots is Hungarian and has an ATPL which he did in Hungary. Our German authorities did not accept either his license or medical for commercial flying on German registered aircraft. Luckily (because he is an excellent pilot trained under the Malev cadet scheme) the Netherlands recognise Hungarian papers and issued him an EASA ATPL that our German authority must accept. That’s not really what the “inventors” of JAR and EASA had in mind….
