An article published this Monday by the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung calls on Germany to withdraw all its financial support that ends up sponsoring bullfighting. According to the article, more than €100 million (£93 million; $112 million) from the EU ends up subsidising Spanish agricultural enterprises, including some dedicated to the breeding of bulls. The article states that Germany contributes 20% of the total amount.
The author of the article, the environment journalist Jost Maurin, argues that bullfights count as "cruelty" and a "perverse ritual." "It is a scandal that Germany also co-finances this bad habit through the EU," he laments.
Maurin was writing following the reintroduction of bullfights to the Balearic Islands last Friday after Spain's Constitutional Court overturned a ban passed by the Parliament in Mallorca. In it, he provides the most sadistic and graphic details of bullfighting shows.
The author adds: "This perverse ritual is as repulsive as the torments that some pigs have to endure in 'modern' agriculture. Extremely brutal slaughter as a spectacle cannot be excused by the fact that bullfighting bulls, unlike most cattle, have access to pastures. Because the deaths of these animals remain completely unnecessary,".