THE ANCIENT tradition of bullfighting is to come to an end in Catalonia, and the region’s last remaining bullring – Barcelona’s Monumental – will close its doors in 2012.
Deputies in the Catalan parliament yesterday voted by 68 to 55 votes, with nine abstentions, to support a campaign by anti-taurine groups to abolish bullfights in the autonomous region.
The issue was taken up by Catalan nationalists and those demanding independence for the region. ABC, one of Spain’s oldest daily newspapers, devoted the whole of its front page yesterday to a drawing of a matador standing before a bull waving the striped Catalan flag instead of a cape. The caption read “They say bulls, but they mean Spain!”
Enrique Ponce, one of Spain’s leading bullfighters, had no doubts: “This is a battle for Catalan nationalism. It is an attack on Spain, and it smells of dictatorship. Personally, I have no doubt that Catalonia is part of Spain, just like Valencia, Andalucia or Extremadura.”
The two largest parties allowed a free vote to their deputies.
The opposition Popular Party (PP) instructed its deputies to vote against the ban, and PP’s leader Mariano Rajoy said his party would bring a motion to the Congress in Madrid to overrule it and have bullfighting declared “a fiesta of general and cultural interest”.
Josep Montilla, the president of Catalonia, said that he had voted against the ban because he believed in the freedom to choose. But he regretted that so many had chosen the bullfight issue as a way of separating Catalonia from the rest of Spain.
Groups supporting and opposing bullfighting staged their own demonstrations outside the parliament building.
Many of the anti-bullfight faction carried banners in English showing international support for the ban. One naked man, his body painted blood red, stood on a car roof calling for a “stop to animal cruelty”.
There were cheers and tears when the result was announced.
There is no great tradition of bullfighting in Catalonia. After 2012, when the ban comes into effect, Catalan aficionados will have to go to other cities or cross the border into France, where about 100 fights are staged every year at the ancient Roman amphitheatres at Nimes and Arles.
Closing the Monumental will be expensive for the Catalan people, who will have to compensate those who will lose money though its closure.
Vicente Royuela, professor of economics at Barcelona University, estimated that the cost will be between €300-€500 million.
Among the losers are the Balaña family, which has a 99-year lease with Barcelona City Hall to run the Monumental, as well as bullfighters and their teams, bull breeders and other officials.