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> In order to use an eSignature, you need to have an eID (electronic ID) card from an EU member state. Some people in the EU do not have them.

This is false. eIDs are a common way of doing it, since they already have a process for verifying identity obviously and are smartcards matching the required security level, but not required, you can just get a generic matching smartcard loaded with the cert.

In practice, countries recognize only eID cards they produced and signed themselves (well, ordered from Gemalto, Giesecke and Devrient or IDEMIA).

Now, once the use of eID cards expands, all these use cases will require software. So far, countries do on their own. Belgium writes its own software, Estonia as well. The point is that most of that software could be reused.

So far, only open source parts are reused, like opensc.

The Estonian e-signature software is fairly well written, open source and easily extensible to other countries eIDs. Latvian and Lithuanian are already supported.

>Typically, your eID provides the highest authentication level, in terms of security, when dealing with EU or national (country) level services.

Not really, at least in here (Poland). "Qualified electronic signature" which you can buy from several approved suppliers, provides highest authentication, you can use access all government services with it and is legally equivalent to paper signature. Meanwhile "personal signature" you get on government issued electronic ID is not eIDAS-compliant, isn't equivalent to paper signature, and some government services are not available (like these VAT tax forms using Adobe Reader plugins, ugh).

However, if there's part of the software that is useful outside the EU, there would be the option of reusing just that part.