Spain is known for its sun, flamenco and jamón (ham), not exactly for its animal welfare. Lonely dogs, all day chained in front of the house, sometimes in the scorching sun, it has become a familiar sight by now. And these are pets. Farm animals in intensive livestock farming and the custom of excessive animal products in the Spanish diet is another story.
‘Cultural spectacle’
When I first went on summer holidays to Spain with my family in the 80s, my father was offered tickets to a bullfight by the owner of a restaurant which we regularly visited during that holiday. It was supposed to be a ‘cultural spectacle’ of the host country. I seem to remember that as a ten-year-old it sounded quite exciting, being in such a grand arena with those magnificent animals, but my parents (of course) objected. They did not like the idea of these animals being tormented to death as a popular entertainment in the name of culture and tradition. So the ‘cultural spectacle’ did not go ahead. My soft heart is still thankful for that.
What is a bullfight?
The animal rights organisation Peta describes a typical bullfight as follows: The bull enters the arena and is besieged by toreros on blindfolded horses who stab spears into his back and neck. This leaves the bull unable to lift his head properly. Followed by picadores who continue to distract the bull and run circles around him, while stabbing banderillas, coloured spears with barbs on the end, into his back. When the bull is weakened by blood loss, the matador eventually appears to challenge the exhausted, dying animal to a few final attacks, kills him with his sword and cuts the bull’s ear as a trophy.
The torero challenges and ‘fights’ the bull. In most bullfights, several toreros perform in succession: the picadores, who wound the bull with spears; the banderilleros, who insert barbed spears into the bull’s body; and finally the matador, who kills the bull. All of them in tight traditional, colourful costumes.
These are the cruel facts. Advocates of bull fighting tell you a different story, stressing that it’s an ‘art form’, a ‘tradition’ intertwined with the country. As early as the 13th century, the first bullfights took place, performed by horse riders. They believe bullfighting does not involve animal suffering.
Machismo
Being a torero or matador is perceived as an honour. These men are adored as superstars in Spain. Bullfighting breathes machismo. The reality is that the bull is already weakened by, among other things, vaseline smeared eyes. And then the ‘fight’ has yet to begin. Proponents justify bullfighting because of the long cultural tradition and the better life the fighting bull has have had than any other bull that lives in a factory farm.
According to Peta, around 250,000 bulls are killed in bullfights around the world every year. For horses too, bullfighting is harmful and sometimes fatal . Every year, around 200 horses die after being taken on their horns by bulls.
Bullfights are constitutionally protected
Bullfighting is controversial in Spain. Catalonia’s parliament declared a ban on bullfighting in July 2010, but this was overturned by Spain’s Supreme Court on 20 October 2016. The court stated that the cultural value of bullfighting had been ignored. Earlier, on 12 November 2013, bullfighting was even declared Spain’s cultural heritage. As a result, it is therefore constitutionally protected from abolition.
Since 2019 Mallorca has been allowed to hold bullfights again, after a law accepted by left-wing parties PSOE, Més and Podemos, was overturned on the initiative of the conservative-right-wing Partido Popular (PP), which was supposed to make bullfighting more ‘humane’ and prohibited killing the animal. Last year bullfighting returned during the summer in Palma for the first time after the pandemic. The cowardly art of torturing and killing an innocent animal can be experienced on the Spanish island again this summer.
Despite that the bullfight supposed to be Spanish cultural heritage, its popularity is declining. An ageing public, protesting animal rights activists (‘La tortura no es cultura’), and retreating sponsors are the main causes. Around 80% of Spaniards are against bullfighting.
Subsidies
Still rich EU subsidies are still being handed out to the bullfighting industry. Breeders of fighting bulls are estimated to have received around 130 to 200 million euros in EU subsidies every year so far. On top of this, bullfighting is supported by 571 million euros in national subsidies. Without these subsidies, bullfighting would high likely be over.
Indeed, the popularity of bullfighting, especially among young Spaniards, is steadily declining. According to the Spanish Ministry of Culture, by June 2020 the number of bullfights in the arena’s had already been reduced by 63.4% compared to 2007.
A Spanish majority does not want their/our tax money to go to the bullfighting industry. On 28 October 2015, the European Parliament voted in favour of ending European subsidies that are allocated to the bullfighting industry. In 2018, Anja Hazekamp, MEP for the Dutch Party for the Animals submitted an amendment to adapt the Common Agricultural Policy so that EU subsidies no longer go to bullfighting.
The European Parliament voted in favour of the amendment. As in 2015, MEPs now voted again to ban agricultural subsidies for ‘funding lethal bullfighting’. Yet the ban was not passed.
Also during the most recent review of the European agricultural policy (which came into force as of 1 January 2023), the parliament adopted the proposal that would stop funds for livestock with the final destination ‘sale for activities linked to bullfighting’, but in negotiations with the European Commission and the Council of Europe, that proposal did not hold up. The European Commission claimed it could not legally control the distinction of destination. Anno 2023, therefore, EU subsidies are still flowing to bullfighting, writes a journalist from the Belgian newspaper De Standaard.
Unworkable EU laws and regulations
A Kafkaesque nightmare. The reality is that thanks to tangled regulations, which have apparently become unworkable for the European commissioners, precious millions are flowing away into a practice, which a majority of the population does not even want.
Since 12 May 2022, the paper version of El País, Spain’s most-read newspaper, no longer has a cultural section on bullfighting. It would not be ‘politically correct’ and ‘progressive’ to publish about this. But what it is really about, of course, is the torture of animals in the name of culture and tradition and a majority of the population that has now indicated it no longer wants to support it.
To end this barbaric tradition article 13 of the EU Treaty of Rome needs to be changed in order to no longer subordinate animal welfare to religious rituals, cultural traditions and cultural heritage. So far, attempts by the MEP of the Dutch Party for the Animals have failed.
Tourism, one of Spain’s main industries, is also part of the reason why bullfighting still takes place.
Outside Spain, there are bullfights too, in southern France and in most countries of Central and South America. Without the tourist, this ‘cultural heritage’ in Spain could be over sooner than we think.
‘España Avanza’
Therefore, never support this poor culture of torturing and killing an innocent animal. Because that’s exactly what it is. España Avanza (Spain Forward — the slogan of the current government)?
Well, I see no progress when the Spanish government and EU keep supporting cruel traditions.
Last Sunday the Spaniards voted for a new parliament. The president of the community Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, of conservative-right wing party PP announced in the beginning of this year that she will guarantee the care of bullfighting, because “it’s tradition, it’s the future, it’s joy, it’s culture, it’s freedom, it’s Spain”.
Holding on to traditions stops when torture begins, right?
Remember Mahatma Ghandi’s words: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
Image: Diego Gomez Tejedor on Unsplash
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Organisations working continuously on ending the bullfight tradition: CAS International and Anima Naturalis.
