The debate over bullfighting's place in Spanish culture and society has been reignited after the country's supreme court ruled that the Socialist-led government has been wrong to exclude bullfighters from a list of events available to young people through a free culture voucher scheme.
The Bono cultural joven youth culture voucher entitles Spaniards turning 18 to a €400 355 allowance, half of which can be spent on attending cultural events such as festivals, concerts, plays, exhibitions and films.
However, the decision to omit bullfighting from the list of live cultural events angered the Fundaci n del Toro de Lidia, an organisation dedicated to defending and promoting the activity.
The foundation's president, Victorino Mart n, said bullfighting was one of Spain's most distinctive cultural expressions and described its exclusion from the scheme as cultural censorship and an attack on freedom. The organisation took the matter to the supreme court, which overturned the government's decision on Tuesday, ruling that there had been no justification for omitting bullfighting.
The court noted that bullfighting had been declared part of Spain's cultural heritage under a 2013 law, adding that its cultural, historical and artistic aspects had been given legal recognition.
Mart n said the court's ruling was great news telling the Cope radio station: What this judgment says is that a leader in this country regardless of their tastes and ideology has to obey the law. There is a law that protects bullfighting and obliges those in power to promote it. In this case, we saw a clear exclusion because of ideological sectarianism. Isabel D az Ayuso, the rightwing populist president of the Madrid region, also celebrated the ruling, saying bullfighting was part of Spain's culture and shouldn t suffer discrimination because of ideological bias. Sources at Spain's culture ministry told El Pa s that bullfighting would be included among the activities available through this year's voucher scheme.
Opponents of bullfighting saw the ruling as a backwards step.
Sergio Torres, director general of animal rights at Spain's social rights ministry, said the court's decision showed the need to overturn the legislation protecting bullfighting.
The supreme court forces the government to subsidise bullfighting through the culture voucher, he wrote on Twitter. In the 2013 law, bullfighting was declared as a Spanish cultural heritage. It is time to repeal that law so that bullfighters are never against classed as cultural heritage. Pedro Vall n, a journalist and writer, suggested that the move could backfire because of the dwindling popularity of bullfighting in Spain.
The supreme court has unnecessarily brought forward legislation that will ban the bull festivals instead of letting them die out gradually because no one wants to pay for them, he said on Twitter.
After Spain's financial crisis in 2008, the number of festivals dropped. In the year before the crash, 3,651 events featuring bulls were held across Spain. By the year 2019 the number of events had more than halved to 1,425.
Europe's bullfighting sector has suffered losses of more than 150 m during the Covid epidemic as money-spinning events such as the annual running of bulls in Pamplona were cancelled.
In 2010, Catalonia followed suit, but the ban was overturned by Spain's constitutional court six years later.