My impression from reading more about the EU Digital Wallet project is that it originally had nothing to do with age verification. It was supposed to be a handy tool for a digital drivers license, for opening a bank account online abroad, making a digital signature, etc..

For such applications the privacy trade-offs were probably fine. Sure, the Dutch government can see that you just opened a German bank account. But they'd be notified of that anyway.

Where it gets more dubious is the requirement that large social networks support it for login. Then the government can see which accounts you have. And lock you out of them!

But realistically nobody would use that, it'd be some obscure option on the signup screen.

But then it got hijacked by the age-verification gang, headed by Von der Leyen herself - so coming straight from the top.

Because these apps will (initially) be the only way to do age verification, they go from a niche option to the default and effectively mandatory. And so what a started as a handy way to open a bank account after moving abroad, turns into a mass surveillance and censorship machine.

None of this is excusable, and the people voting for it knew (or were willfully ignorant, no moral difference) this would happen. But it's useful to understand the dynamics.
https://youtu.be/4VRRriyDKKk