Catalonia will soon vote to ban bullfighting

Bullfighting
It seems that finally December the 15th might be the date chosen for the Catalan Parliament for the first round of voting for the law that will finally ban bullfighting in Catalonia. Citizens can request a law to be voted by the Parliament by popular demand by collecting signatures. In this case the Prou! (Catalan for Enough!) platform collected 180.000 signatures in Catalonia, three times more than required.

Bullfighting is considered the Spanish national sport and inherent part of their culture and even though in the beginning of the 20th century it was also popular in Catalonia since Franco promoted it as a symbol of fascist Spain most Catalans found it offensive and progressively lost interest in it. Catalonia has always been more progressive than Spain and therefore popular rejection to this cruel and violent show has been a fact for decades.

However, there are still two bullfighting rings in Barcelona, Las Arenas hasn’t hosted a “corrida” since 1990 and is currently being turned into a shopping center and La Monumental, which occasionally hosts shows attended mostly by drunk and disoriented tourists who believe they are in Spain and therefore attending a bullfighting show is what you do here.

For many this is also an identity struggle, the Spanish parties in the Catalan Parliament: PSOE of Catalonia, PP and Ciutadans have delayed the voting as much as they’ve been legally able to by presenting amendments (link in catalan). This shows how the Spanish parties in Catalonia even without any kind of popular support try to boycott this popular initiative as they know this voting will make more clear the differences between Catalonia and Spain to the international community.

Whereas ERC, ICV will vote for the ban as a block the Spanish PP and Ciutadans will vote against it. The two major parties, PSOE of Catalonia and CiU will allow their deputies freedom of voting according to their own beliefs but CiU’s votes might be enough to pass the law.

The second and final round of voting will probably be next spring or summer. Let’s hope that next year bullfighting in Catalonia will be a thing of the past.


Here’s a link to an article on the subject by Time magazine.

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