Iona Napier
EUROPE is kissing goodbye to bullfighting.
The European parliament yesterday voted to put an end to funding this sector through public subsidies.
The bullfighting industry had been benefiting from money towards the Common Agricultural Policy (PAC) which sees bull breeders benefitting indirectly.
And although specific funding has never been provided by the EU, it is a further step to prevent the sport.
However, the €130 million from the budget has not yet been pulled and it may take some time, predicts the European Green Party’s Florent Marcellesi.
“This is a great victory, European citizens no longer want to subsidize anything involving killing animals,” said Marcellesi.
A change in the 2016 budget specifies that the agricultural allowance must not be used to fund lethal bullfighting activities.
Yet subsidies do not currently take into account what activity takes place on land, therefore its extent may not live up to the wishes of anti-bullfighting campaigners.
Paper tigers in the EU. Completely impossible to remove bull torture from agricultural subsidies. “Fighting” bulls are bred on farms. Farms qualify for subsidies, period. Unless all agricultural subsidies are stopped (impossible of course) then money will continue to be creamed off to fund this odious practice.
CAP – a subsidy to big farmers and the agri-businesses, that’s what the EU is for, don’t you just love it?