If it's determined to be allowed in the EU other countries can go wild with what they consider cultural symbols. It's now a stash to cram in anything you don't want ever falling into the public domain. Disney would kill for a similar loophole in the US.
Because that method makes it act more like permanent single ownership than something cultural.
> Seems like a perfectly fine way to pay for upkeep of museums, particularly in this case since these are public institutions.
Whether the result is good is different from how far it's pushing, and I think the result sounds like it has the potential to be helpful. But I don't like how closely it ties revenue to the popularity of each museum's specific artifacts, since these are public institutions.
If it's culturally valuable then the members of that cultural group can (probably happily) pay for that upkeep? Presumably covering some shortage if tourism doesn't satisfy the base need to keep the artifacts intact?
Lots of discussions here on copyright but the ruling doesn't seems to have anything to do with copyright per se. Also, playing devil's advocate here: agree or not (I don't) is not uncommon for portrails of cultural/historical symbols to be regulated, just look at the ban of nazi symbolism in - Germany (Italy also bans them, but not - finland for example).