Europe’s digital identity project is at a crossroads. Under eIDAS 2.0, every Member State must deliver a high-assurance eID by 2026 and a national EUDI Wallet by 2027. On paper, it’s a harmonisation effort. In practice, the paths diverge.
Germany has unveiled one of the most ambitious wallet blueprints in Europe. But the design raises an uncomfortable question: is this a model for the Union—or a fortress Germany builds for itself?
Before looking forward, let’s look back. Germany’s existing Ausweis eID, introduced in 2010 and enhanced in 2016, has never taken off.
These numbers reveal a hard truth: technical availability does not equal citizen adoption. Ease, trust, and use cases drive usage—not architecture alone.
The German EUDI Wallet is not a lightweight app. It is a national trust stack with multiple engineered components:
Wallet App on the citizen’s device, anchored to a hardware-backed keystore.
This is state-level engineering: expensive, sophisticated, and deeply integrated with Germany’s regulatory fabric.
At the centre sits the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI)—an institution uniquely positioned to:
Few Member States can match this concentration of authority. For Germany, it’s a strength. For others, it highlights the growing gap in capacity.
Most Member States cannot replicate Germany’s fortress wallet for three reasons:
For smaller states, the only viable path will be EU-funded reference wallets, regional cooperation, or regulated private solutions.
Germany’s approach is technically impressive. But it risks being perceived as “Germany doing its own thing.”
That perception matters. The promise of eIDAS 2.0 is cross-border interoperability and mutual trust. If the largest Member State is seen as setting its own course, smaller states may delay adoption—or wait for Brussels to deliver a different blueprint.
At ZealiD, we see both opportunity and risk:
The lesson from the Ausweis eID is clear: penetration will not come from architecture alone. Citizens need ease, trust, and compelling use cases. If Europe is to succeed, wallet design must be open, modular, and interoperable—with strong support for smaller states.
Germany’s EUDI Wallet is a bold step, but also a reminder: Europe cannot afford 27 divergent fortresses.
The Union’s challenge is not only to build wallets, but to ensure they are adopted, trusted, and interoperable across borders. Without that, the EUDI project risks repeating the Ausweis eID story—technically sophisticated, politically ambitious, and barely used.
ZealiD is an EU Qualified Trust Service Provider offering identity wallets and qualified electronic signatures across Europe. We are a certified Microsoft ISV Partner and trusted by financial institutions, Fortune 500 companies, and national governments.
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