As more and more people realize how cruel bullfights are, the interest in the sadistic events decreases and with it the income.
But the bullfighting industry is kept alive, among other things, by EU subsidies.

The EU continues to promote the breeding of “fighting bulls” – and with it the suffering and death of countless animals.

Millions of euros from Germany for the bullfighting industry

Agricultural businesses in Spain that breed “fighting bulls” receive around 130 million euros in agricultural subsidies for their land from the European Union.
These subsidies contain around 31 million euros in tax money from Germany, as it contributes 24 percent of the EU budget.

This means that German taxpayers – whether intentionally or unintentionally – help finance the cruel bullfights in Spain.
Austria also supports the horrendous subsidies.

Bullfights are against the European Convention

The European Convention for the Protection of Animals in Agriculture stipulates that animals must not be exposed to unnecessary or prolonged pain.
However, the breeding of “fighting bulls” means that the animals are slowly tortured to death with great pain and suffering.

In bullfights, the bulls are beaten to exhaustion with lances and wooden sticks with barbs.
In their agony, they are incited again and again and chased through the arena.

The supposedly redeeming stab in the back does not kill the animals immediately. Conscious, paralyzed in pain, they are dragged out of the arena by their horns with chains.

They are then hung upside down and their necks cut open so that they slowly bleed out.
Many thousands of bulls are tortured to death in arenas in Spain every year.

PETA hands over petition to MEPs

In October 2015 we from PETA Germany handed over a petition with over 11,000 signatures to the German and Austrian MEPs for an end to EU subsidies for the bullfighting industry.
At the end of October 2015, the EU Parliament voted on whether Spanish fighting bull breeders would continue to receive agricultural subsidies from the EU.

Unfortunately, the amendment intended to abolish subsidies for the bullfighting industry was rejected in November 2015.

However, it is a great partial success that the EU Parliament has voted for an end to bullfighting subsidies for the first time.
And the efforts continue: In March 2021, a group of 33 MEPs again campaigned for bullfighters to be excluded from the usual agricultural subsidies.

PETA supports these activities on an ongoing basis.

Please sign our petition to the responsible politicians for an end to the bullfighting in Spain. Entertainment and tradition must never justify overt torture of living beings.

https://www.peta.de/themen/stierkampf-eu-subventionen/

And I mean…How works a bullfighting (more precisely: the murder of a bull) ?
Normally there are three bullfighters and six bulls in the programme. Each bullfighter has two bulls.

Each bullfighter has a Cuadrillo (Team of men) to assist him in the ring.

When the bull first enters the ring he is caped to see his reactions.

There are three acts to the fight with each bull.

1. The act of the picadores. *

The damaging of the muscles of the bulls necks with the pica, a spiked lance. This is done by the picador, a man mounted on a horse. The horse is blindfolded, has his ears stuffed with wads of newspaper and on occasions has his vocal chords cut. The horse is covered with padding.

2. The placing of the banderillas. Up to six banderillas or harpoons are allowed. These have a 5cm metal end with a sharp point and barb.

3. The matador uses the muleta (red cloth and stick) to make a few passes and then with a sword he attempts to kill the bull.
If he fails, he then uses an Estoque de descabellar (sword with a crosspiece near the point that turns the end into a stabbing knife), with which he attempts to sever the spinal cord behind the head.

Then the bull’s spinal cord is finally cut through with a puntilla (stabbing knife).

The ears and sometimes the tail are cut off and awarded to the bullfighter and the bull is dragged out of the ring.

When all has been done to kill the bull some are still alive when they leave the bullring.

With ears and tail removed, this still living bull was finally killed, outside the ring, in the back of a lorry.

*(all photos from the organization FAACE= fight against animal cruelty)

What would German citizens say if they found out that their taxes are helping to finance the cultivation of poppies for heroin production in a country in southern Europe where heroin consumption is permitted?

As a German citizen who is not allowed to consume this drug in Germany and is liable to prosecution, would you agree to allow this consumption elsewhere in Europe with your taxpayers’ money?

Common sense and our sense of morality tell us that funding an illegal activity cannot be legal or can not be legalized by giving the subsidy to another country within the EU where a small minority consider it legal .

And yet that is exactly what is happening in Europe today.

All Europeans use their taxes to finance the breeding of bulls for bullfighting and other festivals in Spain, Portugal and France.

It is a shame that out of the 705 MEPs only 33 have campaigned for bullfighters to be excluded from the usual agricultural subsidies
One MP lacks knowledge, the other brains, the third will lack of will, and the majority of everything.

My best regards to all, Venus