BARCELONA, Spain — Lawmakers in Catalonia outlawed bullfighting Wednesday, making it Spain’s first major region to ban the centuries-old ballet between matador and beast after heated debate that pitted animalwelfare groups against a pillar of traditional culture.
Cheers broke out in the local 135-seat legislature after the speaker announced that the ban had passed 68-55 with nine abstentions. The ban will take effect in 2012 in the northeastern coastal region whose capital is Barcelona.
Catalonia is a powerful, wealthy area with its own language and culture, and a large degree of self-rule. Many in Spain have seen the pressure in Catalonia for a bullfighting ban as a further bid by the region to stand out from the rest of the country.
The practical effect of the ban will be limited. Catalonia has only one functioning bullring, in Barcelona, while another disused one is being turned into a shopping mall. It stages 15 fights a year, which are rarely sold out, out of a nationwide total of roughly 1,000 bouts per season.
Still, bullfighting buffs and Spanish conservatives have taken the drama seriously, seeing a stinging anti-Spanish rebuke in the grassroots, anti-bullfighting drive that started in the region last year.
But Joan Puigcercos, a lawmaker from a Catalan pro-independence party, insisted that this was not about politics or national identity but rather “the suffering of the animal. That is the question, nothing more.”
He said that even though attendance at bullfights is on the decline in Spain, it would be morally wrong to sit back and just let the Spanish national pastime die a natural death.
However, the Catalan regional president, Jose Montilla, said Catalonia should have done just that - let social customs evolve to the point where bullfighting would vanish on its own, rather than legislate an end to it and deny people’s right to choose whether to go to the ring.
“I voted against the ban because I believe in freedom,” Montilla said.
The center-right Popular Party, which is fervent about the idea of Spain as a unified country run from Madrid - and also supports bullfighting - said it will fight back against the ban.
The result was expected to energize animal-welfare groups bent on seeking bans in other regions of Spain.
Bullfighting is also popular in Mexico, parts of South America, southern France and Portugal.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 07/29/2010