This Friday, the BOE publishes the ministerial decree by which the National Bullfighting Award is abolished, as this newspaper learned from ministerial sources. A decision that the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, had already put forward last May.
To complete the removal of this prize created to encourage “the promotion of bullfighting”, a public consultation was opened to citizens. During this process, more than 90% of citizen communications were in favor of its removal.
The process took place in two phases. In the first of these, carried out in May and before the publication of the draft ordinance, 3,268 communications were received from individuals or legal entities. Of these, 3,151 were favourable (96.42% of the total); 89 were rejected (2.72% of the total); and 28 were considered impossible or very difficult to interpret (0.86% of the total).
During the second, between the end of June and mid-July, the process took place at the electronic headquarters of the Ministry of Culture, where 215 communications from individuals or legal entities were received. Of these, 197 were favorable (91.63% of the total); 12 were rejections (5.58% of the total); and 6 were considered impossible or very difficult to interpret (2.79% of the total).
Last gesture of the Zapatero government
With the publication in the BOE, the story of a controversial award that the ministry began to award in 2013 ends following the transfer of powers for the promotion and protection of bullfighting from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of Culture, with Ángeles González Sinde (PSOE) as Minister of Culture (the transfer took place in 2011 and the award was created just days before the Socialist Party lost the general elections of November 2011 and Rajoy succeeded Zapatero as Prime Minister).
In 2011 and by decree, the socialist government assured that bullfighting was a “cultural activity”. Today, eleven winners later, the coalition government of the PSOE and Sumar eliminates the award based on “the evolution of the creative and cultural sector” and “the evaluations and feelings of society”. A feeling that this public hearing process has confirmed.
Ministry sources point out that “the motivation” for the elimination of the prize “took into account the evolution of Spanish society.” The Survey of Cultural Habits and Practices in Spain shows that only 1.9% of the Spanish population attends bullfighting shows, observing an interannual decrease in 2023 of 4.7% in the number of bullfighting celebrations held in Spain.
Conversations with regional governments
Bullfighters, breeders, entities and other professionals have received during this period the National Bullfighting Award, endowed with 30,000 euros. Among them, the matador Paco Ojeda, whose “exceptional professional and artistic career” was highlighted, the bullfighter Enrique Ponce for his contribution to bullfighting as a “Spanish cultural heritage” or El Juli, who is already the last winner of the National Bullfighting Award for “his” involvement in the promotion and defense of the bullfighting festival.
The announcement of the cancellation of the award also sparked negative reactions, in addition to the bullfighting sector, from right-wing parties. The deputy secretary of culture and spokesman for the PP, Borja Sémper, announced that his party would reinstate the recognition. “Its cancellation shows that the government is not committed to freedom or cultural plurality,” he said last May. José Luis Martínez-Almeida, mayor of Madrid, described bullfighting as “the most cultural festival in the world today” and defined Madrid as “the proud capital of bullfighting.”
Emiliano García-Page (PSOE), president of Castilla-La Mancha, has not appreciated this decision either, as has, of course, the Toro de Lidia Foundation – which received this same award in 2020 –, which announced in May that it would also award the prize on its own, for which it is in talks with the Community of Madrid and with other regional leaders – including the man from La Mancha – who, according to the Foundation, would be interested in participating in the design of a new award. In June, the Generalitat Valenciana (PP and Vox) granted this foundation a grant of 300,000 euros to promote a bullfighting circuit. However, far-right MEP Alvise Pérez, leader of the Se Acabó La Fiesta platform, voted this Thursday in the European Parliament against subsidies for fighting bulls, considering it a spectacle of “brutality, cruelty and torture”, in a very different position from that of PP and Vox.
