“Young people should not attend bullfights: it’s animal abuse”, says Ryan, a tall, 18-year-old man wrapped in a down jacket. “It’s been part of Spanish culture for a long time, it’s normal that it’s included in the Culture Pass”, retorts Pablo, a classmate, outside the doors of a high school in the Hortaleza district of Madrid. “Here, going to the “toros” is hypercultural and I have quite a few classmates who go there on weekends with their parents. But for me, it shouldn’t be seen as art: it’s clear that I won’t use my Pass for that,” adds Cassandra, 17. The debate has begun…
On February 7, the Spanish Supreme Court challenged the exclusion of bullfighting shows from the “young cultural voucher”, set up in 2022 in Spain on the model of the French Culture Pass. The left-wing government led by the socialist Pedro Sánchez will therefore have to include this discipline in the list of activities financed by the Ministry of Culture. Whether he likes it or not.
A check worth 400 euros
Reserved for all young people celebrating their 18th birthday during the year, this check worth 400 euros includes a large number of cultural activities. Two hundred euros are reserved for the living arts, cultural heritage and audiovisual arts, 100 euros for cultural products on physical media, such as books, DVDs or video games, and 100 euros for cultural consumption online or in digital format. , such as subscriptions to music or audiovisual platforms. School textbooks, musical instruments, artistic materials, fashion items or gastronomy, which were not considered artistic creations, were excluded, as were “bullfighting shows”.
A decision that was not self-evident when the Pass was presented in October 2021. Asked about the possibility of opening the system to bullfights, the Minister of Culture, the socialist Miquel Iceta, initially agreed, emphasizing that bullfighting depended on his ministry, before retracting a few hours later, under pressure from the Unidas Podemos (radical left) wing of the coalition government, openly anti-bullfighting.
The executive then claimed the need to “prioritize sectors” benefiting from the measure. “There is no doubt that the exclusion of bullfights was an ideological discrimination, encouraged by some members of this government, accuses the vice-president of the Toro de Lidia Foundation, for the defense and promotion of bullfighting, Fernando Goma. Even video games have been included…”
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