Exactly. No store in Europe is able to deny Apple Pay as its really just another type of NFC payment charged from your debit or credit card(s) equivalent to a contactless card.There are other ways to track customers while still offering Apple Pay. For instance with loyalty cards that offer discounts.
In my country (Belgium) every store offers support for Apple Pay and as far as I know no store can block it because it’s an NFC based bank card, like any other regular bank card.
Evil E.U. regulations and bureaucracy getting in the way of businesses’ rights to make payments unnecessarily tedious for consumers just to make more money or gather data.