Perhaps the bankruptcy and close of KPNQwest/eBone, Europe's largest backbone carrying approximately 50% of european traffic, impacting 100,000 European businesses may be the cause of the slow down ?
They will cease operations at 5pm CET.
Some routes have become unreachable, but many European carriers have now stated that they have alternate paths that do not require KPNQwest, and that this event will not disable Europe, but one will expect an slow down in Europe.
More:
http://live.save-ebone.com/