Whilst animal rights groups in Spain are asking Brussels to put pressure on the country to ban bullfighting, it has been revealed that 40% of all public funding for this barbaric practice goes to the Valencia region, where the newly appointed Vice President is a former bull fighter.
AnimaNaturalis and CAS International have carried out intense research in all the municipalities of Spain to discover how much public money is allocated to maintain and subsidise bullfights. Based on the transparency law, through the electronic headquarters of each council’s website, each of the 1,820 municipalities that organise festivals with bulls have been contacted and the estimated figure amounts to a total of 42 million euro in 2019, for a total of 17,708 activities, a figure that remains more or less stable year after year in most municipalities, although some have already doubled it in 2023, as is the case of the Fuenlabrada City Council (Madrid).
A protest took place last weekend in which more than a hundred people attended in front of the Valencia City Council, which has recently opted for the return of celebrations such as bullfighting in the districts where they had been eliminated for years.
In total, 1,820 municipalities organise some type of festival with bulls every year. This represents 22% of all the municipalities in Spain.
Although the law requires transparency in the destination of public money in each municipality, only 47% of the councils contacted responded by complying with the deadlines determined by Law 19/2013. Even after appealing to higher bodies and registering formal protests, the rest have not responded.
The Valencian Community is, by far, the autonomy with the greatest concentration in number of events each year. In 2019, 8,623 shows were held, including ‘bous al carrer’, bulls on bulls, roped bulls or bulls at sea. In fact, 50% of all Valencian municipalities organise some type of bullfighting celebration every year, a figure much higher than its neighbour Catalonia, in which only 3% of its municipalities organise bullfighting shows.
Castellón is the province where the most public investment is allocated to bullfighting, with 94% of its municipalities active in the organisation and financing of bullfighting festivals. Vall d’Alba, Cabanes and Vila-Real are the three town councils that celebrate the most and spend the most money on them. 47% of all aid delivered in the Valencian Community is distributed in the province of Castellón, with an estimated total of €8,782,360, which makes it the province where the most aid is distributed in Spain.
In comparative terms, the province of Alicante is the one with the least bullfighting roots: only 26% of its town councils organise celebrations, with Xabia and Pedreguer being the municipalities where the most bet is on ‘bous al carrer’, with a similar estimated expenditure of €440,000 for approximately 40 celebrations, in each municipality. The estimate for the province is €2,055,915, which corresponds to 14% of all aid from the Valencian Community, and puts Alicante in fifth place in Spain where the most public money is distributed.
In the absence of full transparency it is practically impossible to know the real figure of all the public money that is allocated to the organisation of this type of festival, but the group estimates that it cannot be less than 42 million, and that the total cost of these celebrations amounts to 86 million euro. Therefore, the real figure of public money given to festivals with bulls is in that range.
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