Communiqué du CRAC Europe – 14 octobre 2014
Open Letter
Dear Mr De Grandes,
I have received your letter and I thank you for the transparency you wish to bring to this debate. I share your will for an open debate which is why I decided to send you an open letter.
There is much evidence that bullfights are related to European subventions. Spanish MEPs claim it. Official sources state : “major revenues derive from [lidia] bull sales and subsidies from the CAP” or as the original text states : “el ingreso principal procede de la venta de animals de lidia y de las subvenciones de la Política Agrícola Común.” Some years ago, the bullfighting industry received direct subsidies from the EU in the form of a “beef special premium” scheme that allowed paying up to €210 per bull ; now a flat amount per hectare is allotted : €240 according to Dr. Alfred Bosch’s report. European Rural Development schemes also fund activities related to bullfighting such as bullring renovations. Therefore, directly or indirectly, the EU finances the bullfighting industry.
The European Union protects the cultural idiosyncrasies, that is true. But the article 13 of the TFEU is not an explicit license to torture and kill in the most painful way. Not having to pay FULL REGARD to the animal’s welfare is one thing, extreme cruelty and humiliation inflicted to a bull is another. The European Union is committed to increasing the animals’ welfare throughout Europe. The pressure is increasing as less and less people accept bullfighting in Spain, France and Portugal. The conflict created by these two contradictory objectives will have to be solved.
The lidia bulls are not a singular and unique race. Bullfighting bulls belong to the species Bos Taurus and do not have enough biological differences with the ordinary bulls to be taxonomically classified as a special sub-species. The only difference with other bulls is the purpose they are bred for and some characteristics that have been created by artificial selection. Therefore, the lidia bulls cannot go extinct because they are a breed. Breeds cannot go extinct, only species do.
The pasture ecosystem would not be affected and it has no environmental value. Subsidies actually degrade dehesas (pasture). They allow a load of animals that consume an amount of food that the dehesa land cannot produce at a sustainable rate. Dehesas are a human created environment considered by environmentalists as unstable and very limited ecologically. They were created by destroying the pristine Mediterranean forest. Furthermore, bulls do not share the dehesas with the critically endangered lynx and imperial eagle, they actually play no role in the ecosystem because they are neither prey nor predator and do not contribute to the reproduction of any plant species. Anyhow, less than 10% of the dehesa surface is used for the bull breeding, thus the impact remains limited.
Neither I will hide that I am a big defender of the “bullfighting” bulls. I care for them and have their best interest at heart. I don’t want them to die in great suffering. What all anti-bullfighting activists and I want and try to achieve is that they live and prosper. There are certainly possibilities to keep these bulls on the land they were born on without having to send them to an unbearable fate.
With my best regards,
Jean-Pierre Garrigues
CRAC Europe
Comité Radicalement Anti Corrida
B.P.10244
F-30105 Alès Cedex, France
On bullfighting and environmental issues, see :
– in Spanish
– in English
– in German
– French translation of the 20 Minutos article.
Sent per Email 30.09.2014 18:46
Dear Mr Garrigues,
I have received your petition to support Amendment 6334 CRAC Europe.
From the transparency that should characterize the work of a Member of the European Parliament ; I have to tell you that not only do I disagree with your position but also that I will do everything I can to prevent the aforementioned amendment from thriving.
For my part I respect all positions, but I do not share the misleading speech that you employed against the Lidia bulls in Spain, and much less to use the debate on the budget of the European Union to bring out of this issue, which is totally unfamiliar to the European policy of subsidies to farmers and ranchers.
The parliamentary amendment causes a total confusion over the citizens, as the Bullfights celebrations are completely unrelated to the subventions that Spanish farmers are receiving, since subsidies are intended only for productive activity.
On the other hand, I believe that it is necessary to recall that, the European Union protects in its Constitutive Treaty the cultural idiosyncrasies of the Member States.
Moreover I do not hide that I am a big defender of the Lidia bulls and if the breeding were to be stopped, a singular and unique race would disappear and affect the ecosystem. Thus « the pasture ecosystem » would be affected and it has a great environmental value.
Sincerely, I hope and I wish your claim not to succeed since unfortunately, it isrepeated again and again, year after year, in the debate on the budget of the European Union.
Best regards,
Luis De Grandes
Secretary General of the EPP Spanish Delegation