There is legislation in place in the EU to enable digital signing. I think it is currently only on the level of: 'signatures that meet these standards can be legally binding if the contract allows for digital signatures'. I also do believe there is a system to allow countries to do identity attestation. That is, countries will assert that, indeed, this key belongs to this name.

> I also do believe there is a system to allow countries to do identity attestation

not sure about the rest of the EU, in Poland there's a thing called Trusted Profile ("Profil Zaufany") where your bank serves as an "identity provider", i.e. you basically use your online bank account to verify your identity. it's kinda weird! but after that you can use your TP to sign and submit most (?) government forms/docs so it's pretty nice

Not only governments but products that bring this to the masses. Encryption is complex and complicated, I understand why but while it is not simplified for UX, not in implementation, it will be, unfortunately, quite hard to become ubiquitous.

I've successfully bought a home by self-GPG-signing and emailing documents (even in a country that has an official (albeit horrible) 'digital signature' solution).