Do you have any evidence of this, or that it's tied to the EU in any way shape or form?
Yes.
Romania's GDP is lower in 2011 compared to 2007 when they entered the EU. Bulgaria does have higher (only 1%), so basically over the past 4 years there were no improvement for their countries standard whatsoever. There was no real growth in any case, while unemployment rate is just as high. Same can be said about Estonia (3% lower, which is huge), Hungary (2% lower), Poland, Slovenia (2% lower) Latvia (1.8% lower) and Lithuania (2.3% lower). Majority of the new countries within EU
did have a much bigger growth before the joined the EU, which is only a fact. It does have to do something with economic crisis that has appeared in 2007 but lets not forget that the hardest knockdown is just now, when we're seeing Portugal, Spain and Italy in trouble, it's this and the next year that will hurt Europe.