Head Topics UK: 'Bullfighting still benefits from millions of euros a year in EU farming subsidies'

Bullfighting still benefits from millions of euros a year in EU farming subsidies

Public funds to farms breeding bulls keeping ‘cruel practice’ of bullfighting alive, say animal rights campaigners

Fri 18 Mar 2022 06.30 GMTBullfighting across Europe is being kept alive by millions of euros paid out by the EU, claim campaigners, despite attempts by MEPs to ban the subsidies.The funding goes to farms that breed bulls for fighting through the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP), a long-running system of subsidy support to the sector.

Spain’s Unión de Criadores de Toros de Lidia, which represents the interests of 347 breeders,that a ban on the subsidy payout would mean an economic hit of around €200m (£170m) a year for the sector across Europe.In 2015, in a move welcomed by animal rights campaigners who described bullfighting as a “

cruel practice”, MEPs voted overwhelmingly in favour of blocking agricultural funds “for the financing of lethal bullfighting activities”.More than six years later, however, there has been little change, with the ban set aside over concerns that it would modify the legal provisions of the CAP. headtopics.com

Joe Moran at animal advocacy organisation Eurogroup forAnimalssaid: “While we agree with the MEPs entirely in their moral outrage and what they’re trying to do, the legal avenues to do this are pretty difficult. In fact, I would say they’re impossible.”

To remove the funds altogether would require animal welfare to be an official competence of the EU, coupled with a law that would ban the raising of bulls for this purpose or prohibit bullfighting altogether, added Moran.An EU official said that while there were no funds specifically designated for breeding bulls for fighting, “it is not excluded”, and bull breeders could still receive public funds from agricultural funding.

Since 2003, EU farmhave mostly been allocated on the amount of land farmed, rather than output or the final destination of products.Bulls on a Spanish farm. An estimated 1,000 farms are breeding animals for bullfighting across the EU.Photograph: Cristina Quicler/AFP/Getty

2020 amendmentto the CAP calling for funds to be barred for cattle whose final destination was “the sale for activities related to bullfighting”, but it was dropped as the European Commission, Council of the EU and parliament finalised the policy.Portuguese MEP Francisco Guerreiro described the funds as “an oxygen balloon that is continually helping this industry to stay afloat”, as the number of festivals involving bulls has declined. headtopics.com

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