Local MEP backs calls to end cruel holiday sport

9.12.26am GMT Wed 14th Feb 2007

South West and Gibraltar MEP Graham Watson has added his name to a petition from MEPs calling on the European Commission to bring about an EU-wide ban on bull-fighting.

Commenting from Strasbourg, Graham Watson MEP said:

"Supporters of bullfighting claim that it is equal competition between bull and man, but the animal has little chance of surviving the ordeal. Exhausted and confused creatures are eventually killed with a sword, and too often the bull dies slowly from pierced lungs rather than from a quick strike to the heart."

The European Parliament has already led the way in combating animal cruelty in farming. Now, the 40,000 European bull deaths per year from bull-fighting can be reduced by action from the European Parliament."

Over 40,000 bulls are killed each year in the EU as part of a fight in which the bull is repeatedly stabbed with barbed spears before dying slowly from exhaustion and blood loss.

Currently, despite laws on animal welfare, bullfighting is permitted to continue in Spain, Portugal and parts of France. Written Declaration 0002/2007, which was tabled by London MEP Robert Evans, calls for all animals, and not just farm animals and those used in experiments, to be included in EU animal protection measures and to bring bullfighting in line with the EU's broader approach to animal welfare, working towards an EU-wide ban on bullfighting. It calls on the Commission to take further steps to ensure that EU farm subsidies cannot be given to farmers who breed bulls to be used in bullfighting