While the economic climate has an effect on GA the effect of EASA has been far greater than we ever expected.
Part M maintenance has added a lot of extra paperwork, the FCL rules have added so much complication that most people have trouble with keeping leagal.
All in all EASA has taken the most restrictive rules from all the member states and added some more and called it law. The result of this is less flying, more expense and less safety.
I Guess it gives us some standardization....... its dragging the north european accident up to that of southern europe! I can see how that has some sort of logic viewed by a paper pusher in Cologne.