As a German observing the political debate in Germany, it appears to me that either the relevant politicians are literally unaware of the equity option, or they are ideologically opposed to it for some reason. The same applies to political journalists, so we don't get a clear answer that way either.

To go into opinion, I'm heavily leaning towards the "ideology" explanation. The current libertarian finance minister is rather publicly operating on a platform of "the government handling money = bad".