Okay so, I'm perplexed: is it really just an EU thing to have state issued ID cards that you get for free by just being a citizen and then you use those for ID with like banks or when voting or whatever?

Wikipedia page on Romanian ID cards for anyone interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_identity_card
Romanian identity card - Wikipedia

@reiddragon the new ID cards here look fairly similar
@gettie I think they're EU-standardized; just looked up Italian IDs as well and they look very similar as well
@reiddragon i still have my laminated paper id 
@gettie I have my old ID still as well, but with a corner cut off