Apple Pay Debuts in Norway With Nordea and Santander

Then it's a mystery to me why countries like Germany are left out of the picture. Roll-out is dictated by Apple and not the banks.

Not all debit cards use the same technology.
A regular Visa card can be credit or debit card. But there's also V-Pay and Maestro. And German banks push their own system (which consequently is the most common in Germany) called Girocard (or specifically Girogo for contactless)

iOS only supports EMV credit cards (even if they really are debit cards). iOS 12 will add support for V-Pay, Maestro and Visa Electron.

Support for Girocard is rumored to be a negotiating point between Apple and the Banks, as are distribution of fees.

Customers of one of the largest banks in Norway (DNB) infuriated by the banks decision to abandon Apple Pay. Users are raging against the bank on their Facebook page, accusing the bank of monopolizing the marked with their own Vipps solution.
https://m.facebook.com/dnb/posts_to_page/?ref=page_internal

Updated my Nordea app two hours ago and saw that Apple Pay was added. Immediately enrolled my debit card. I have waited for this day for 4 years! I might have to go shopping.

Not to be rude or anything, but the Apple Pay rollout in Europe has been very bad and slow as heck.

It would be really, really great if they would finally open an official Apple store in Oslo... Just sayin'.

Perhaps this is because Apple only wants to enroll ancient creditcards instead of debitcards?

Nope, I have both debit and credit card on ApplePay. 99% of my purchases are made on debit. I have to say ApplePay works great in Nordic countries. We have contactless everywhere and every single place accepts ApplePay. I don’t use regular cards anymore.
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Can't have everything I suppose.

Sure you can! Nordic countries have everything better. ;)