At Le Touquet you have an minimum sector altitude circle of 25miles around the ARP. There is also an altitude on the IAF itself. There is no necessity for a TAA based on the IAF because it would add nothing to the MSA.
So you.are expected to descend not below the MSA to reach EKLAD at the altitude on the chart.
If ATS wanted you to hold at EKLAD they would have said so. The hold is not part of a procedure unlike a hippodrome would be.
There are (outside of loss of radio) things which you might request ATS clarification.
If for instance you have entered the MSA at an altitude above that at EKLAD you might want to announce “Inside the 25miles request descent”.if they haven’t yet cleared you descend or asked you to call when ready to.descend.
If you are going to arrive at EKLAD at an altitude where you might need extra time to descend for the approach you can ask for the hold to descend in it.
Its very simple really and as.@Dan writes don’t look for problems.
Is there any context in which being sent to a waypoint implies entering a published hold there?
Peter wrote:
But there is the ambiguity that EKLEB is also a holding fix, which may mean that if you get sent there, you have to enter the hold.
There’s no such rule.
Is there any context in which being sent to a waypoint implies entering a published hold there?
Never heard of such. Hold instruction will be explicitly issued.
OK.
Now, for the sake of education, and going to LSZH, say you get sent to BERSU, not told to hold, and not cleared for some approach
Pick-up the mike, or activate the PTT about 30" before BERSU and only state your callsign xxxxx approaching BERSU
Easy peasy 
That’s what I would do, but surely that one has to be a hold, unless they advise you before you reach the holding fix.
Dan wrote:
Pick-up the mike, or activate the PTT about 30" before BERSU and only state your callsign xxxxx approaching BERSU
Easy peasy
“xxxx approaching BERSU. What are the plans for the me for the afternoon?” :)
Peter wrote:
That’s what I would do, but surely that one has to be a hold, unless they advise you before you reach the holding fix.
Absolutely, and basic, well, I thought so, IFR knowledge. The rule when flying, the more so when playing airliner, is to be at least one step ahead of the game. In the given example a pro would, amongst other things, be on the approach frequency with the tower selected on standby, checked the ILS or the entire RNAV approach, and preselected and verified the hold for correctness against the plate (min/max alt, track, direction, std vs non-standard speed, and of course the type of entry).
So approaching that hold and your radio fails, you would revert to the specific comm failure procedure of the field, which you have hopefully looked at during the approach briefing. This one might tell you to continue the approach, or to join a hold.
If on the other hand the frequency is overloaded, and you can’t get thru, then finally you would punch the activate hold and communicate this to ATC ASAP since it will certainly disturb their image of the traffic flow. The same would apply if you are too high or too fast in the approach, either ask for more track miles, or ask to descend in the hold or racetrack.
@Dan wrote: The same would apply if you are too high or too fast in the approach, either ask for more track miles, or ask to descend in the hold or racetrack.
That’s where our training seems to differ slightly.
Whilst you might ask for the hold in order to lose altitude before the approach. The racetrack.(hippodrome in France) is usually part of the procedure as a turn reversal and must be flown except when vectored differently. Hippodromes/racetracks are gradually being fazed out in with the introduction of gnss approaches and multiple IAFs.
As you say you can descend in the hippodrome as in a procedure turn but the maximum rate at which you can descend in the outbound and inbound legs are regulated. On many charts a hold was superimposed onto the hippodrome to do exactly what you wrote.
