Spanish bullfighting defeated once again

Last year's decision by the Catalan Government to ban bullfighting has been under constant threat by the Spanish ultra-conservatives. Spain spends some 600 million euros of public funds every year on bullfighting. Most Catalans think this is an aberration, especially in the middle of the current financial crisis. On the other hand, Spanish unionist parties are trying to overrun the Catalan Parliament’s decision as they did with the Catalan Statute: through the courts in Madrid.

But things are not going well in the Spanish empire. Former Spanish colonies are banning bullfighting as well. Quito (Ecuador) was the first one to ban the killing of bulls, and last March Panama’s Parliament decided to ban bullfighting. Even Portugal banned the kind of bullfighting where the bull is not killed. The Spanish conservatives who said that the Catalan Parliament had banned bullfighting for political reasons have kept quiet when Panama did the same. Even in Bogotá (Colombia) they decided last June 15th to ban bullfighting as well. This is particularly significant because bullfighting has always been extremely popular there. In fact, it is expected that this decision could spread all over Colombia. The brutes in Spain are going to start feeling very lonely soon.