For me it's obvious that EA in some way automatic determines your location and then connects you to the region they think is best suited for you based on your location. I have no idea how they can get Europe and/or Northern America based on IP or whatever they use mixed up, but they do. Sometimes I have the wrong recommended region and when I play it lags like hell and since there's no way to change the recommended regional settings, the only thing I can do is to restart the PS3 and hope for the best. If I'm lucky I get the right region as recommended and it actually doesn't lag, at least it’s much better... I've tried to only restart the game but it seems like restarting the PS3 is the only way for me to get it to work.
I live in Sweden and one of my friends experience exactly the same thing...