They just have a chip like any other card? I bought a mastercard gift card some time ago and it just came with a pin. In fact I think gift cards don't even have a swipe part at all, and my own visa/mastercard cards still have it but I have it disabled through my online bank account - so I assume any magstrip transaction for those cards would be just rejected entirely.
They’re talking about store-specific gift cards, not generic visa/Mastercard cards.
All of the gift cards I’ve seen in the EU used barcodes, not mag stripes.