> Why is it always these efforts are little private things or not for profit initiatives?

Because (relatively) small teams can act faster. It is also a lot easier to have a small, motivated core group with shared objectives and aligned vision of a project. A non-profit/public benefit entity is also a reasonable host for such an effort. Such projects can also tap into public money (under particular circumstances) via the various EU and national grant schemes.

> Just have it be an official EU government backed identity.

The amount of baggage this would entail is quite large. Besides just bureaucracy you almost certainly would then also invite politics even more, because, even for small projects, the next question will be: In what countries is the service hosted and by which agency/developers?

That is besides the almost inevitable inefficiencies for resource usage and other obligations from being associated with public funds (which can require a LOT of internal politics work to acquire and especially retain).

> for productive national conversation (and some digital services) at scale to happen online identities need to be verified

That is the exact opposite of what you need. Loss of anonymity creates chilling effects that stifle conversation.

AI bots/spam are a problem, but don't solve it by creating an even worse problem.

https://eurosky.tech/about/ has more details, but the goal appears to be to try to foster a thriving European social web.

I think it is part of the growing digital sovereignty trend (the country based one, not the self-sovereign identity one)

I agree the homepage is a weak sell, but an independent operator in Europe IS value. If it doesn’t really make a difference otherwise, why not choose a home server that is governed by and supports your home region of Europe? (obviously there are other things that would make a difference, but you gotta start somewhere)

Let me phrase out one "American" word that should explain it all for you: INDEPEDNECE.

:)