In the arena, a left-wing government which claims to act in the name of the majority of the country in the face of an audience of aficionados and an opposition ready to fight. In Spain, the announcement on Friday of the abolition of the national bullfighting prize has relaunched the debate around bullfighting.
The decision was revealed by the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun. “It did not seem relevant to us to maintain a prize which rewards a form of animal abuse while a majority of Spaniards (…) are increasingly concerned” about animal welfare, he said on the television channel La Sexta.
“Animal torture”
For the minister, from the far-left Sumar party, keeping this prize would be “all the less understood as these forms of animal torture are rewarded with medals which, moreover, are accompanied
of an endowment” financed by “public money”. The announcement of the abolition of this prize had the effect of a bomb in Spain where it immediately found itself at the center of public debate.
The People’s Party (PP, right), the main opposition party, hastened to promise to reinstate this price if it returned to power. “Bullfighting is an activity which is part of our culture in Spain, which is part of our traditions (…), of our identity as a people”, and the suppression of this prize is proof of the “sectarianism of those who govern,” criticized, in front of the press, the president of the PP group in the Chamber of Deputies, Miguel Tellado.
” Cultural Heritage “
The cultural character of bullfighting is the subject of lively debate in Spain between detractors and defenders of bullfighting. The latter highlight its inclusion in 2013 by a conservative government on the list of “intangible cultural heritage” of Spain.
It is in the name of this inscription that the Ministry of Culture has awarded, as for literature or poetry, this national prize since 2013. Endowed with 30,000 euros, this reward which was created in 2011 by a socialist executive, was awarded to renowned bullfighters, such as Julián López, known as “El Juli”, or Enrique Ponce.
A part of the Spanish left, on the other hand, rejects its cultural character and the government of Pedro Sánchez, pushed by the far left, wanted to exclude bullfights in 2021 from the “culture check” offered to young people aged 18.
The angry world of bullfighting
With wind rising, the world of bullfighting, supported by the right, attacked this decision in court and won its case. Several regional governments announced Friday that they would create their own bullfighting prize, including the government of Castile-La Mancha, led by a Socialist Party baron critical of Pedro Sánchez.
The largest organizations in the sector, including the “Fighting Bull” Foundation (Fundacion del Toro de Lidia), the most important, denounced in a joint statement “an insult to the most important cultural economic activity of our country, but also (…) to the law (of 2013) which establishes that the State must protect and promote bullfighting”. Demanding “the resignation” of the Minister of Culture, they denounced “an exercise in totalitarianism typical of other regimes”.
Declining interest
Animal rights associations, on the other hand, were delighted with this announcement, such as Animanaturalis which considered that this measure marked “a step in the fight against bullfighting, a controversial practice”.
If the main bullfighters are celebrities in Spain and bullfights continue to attract an audience of enthusiasts, opinion surveys show a decline in interest throughout the country, particularly among young people. According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Culture, only 1.9% of Spaniards attended a bullfight during the 2021-2022 season.