Well, like I wrote in other comment of mine. Governments here issue personal certificates signed by government ones. These personal certificates can then be used to digitally sign documents and tax reports. It can be used to log into government web sites and many similar uses. These certificates that EU says browsers have to accept are the same ones everyone already uses for biometric passports. If browser accepted these root certificates, then things would be significantly easier to support. No software installation required.
People seem to think this will be used for nefarious cases, but in reality people just install government issued software without thinking. Well, any software without thinking. During that installation you can already add certificate to browser and whole OS. It's just easier and better supported if they go through public way instead of having to support multiple OS installations and similar issues.