PvdD defends Toro de la Vega bull

The Party for the Animals travelled to Madrid to protest the barbaric slaughter of the bull Rompesuelas during the Spanish horror event of Toro de la Vega. On 12 September, MEP Anja Hazekamp lead the protest together with the Spanish party for the animals ‘PACMA’ in the Spanish capital, followed by a hundred thousand people who want Toro de la Vega to end.

Toro de la Vega is an annual event in the Spanish city of Tordesillas, in which a bull is chased by a hundred men on horseback and on foot and is stabbed to death by lances. This year, this is the fate of bull Rompesuelas.

The Party of the Animals urged the Spanish authorities in Madrid to spare Rompesuelas and to ban Toro de la Vega. “This is the worst kind of animal cruelty, and it should be stopped once and for all. Animals are living creatures with sentience and the ability to feel, we cannot allow these cruelties to take place in Europe,” according to Hazekamp during the protest in Madrid. “It is great that the Spanish population has shown en masse that Toro de la Vega is unacceptable, and can no longer be part of Spanish culture.”

Last year, the Party for the Animals and PACMA have also stood up against Toro de la Vega by handing over the petition ‘Breek een lans’ (Break a lance) in Brussels. Three parties for animals together handed over more than 65,000 signatures to the chairwoman of the Committee on Petitions, Cecilia Wikström. The signatures show how much resistance there is against the tradition in Spain. In 2103, PACMA, the Spanish party for the animals, already filed an official request to the European Commission to examine if Toro de la Vega is actually in accordance with EU law. But so far, no response was received yet.