Catalonia bans bullfighting

The result of 68 in favour, 55 against the prohibition was expected, since the Catalonian parliament had cast preliminary votes in December accepting a citizens' petition to outlaw bullfighting on the grounds that it was cruelty to animals.

There were nine abstentions.

In their debate, lawmakers cited the declining popularity of bullfighting in Spain, where fewer and fewer people go each year to the arena to watch toreros wield capes and swords against enraged animals.

"There are some traditions that can't remain frozen in time as society changes. We don't have to ban everything, but the most degrading things should be banned," said Jose Rull, member of parliament for the Catalonian nationalist party, or CiU, during the debate.

The vote comes afteranimal rights activists campaigning under the platform "Prou!", or "Enough!" in the Catalan language, collected 180,000 signatures in Catalonia on a petition calling for the assembly to decide on a motion on the ban.

Catalonia - home to Spain's second-largest city, Barcelona - has become the first region in the country outside of the Canary Islands to ban bullfighting, and others could follow its example.

In an editorial published yesterday, centre-right daily newspaper El Mundo wrote that the issue had become political in a region where the "idea is to ban everything that is Spanish".

The vote comes one month after Spain's Constitutional Court struck down several articles of Catalonia's "statute of autonomy", which expanded the already significant powers of self-rule of the region with its own language and distinct culture.

The Catalan public works minister and regional government spokesman, Joaquim Nadal, said he was confident the issue would not be used as "an element of confrontation" between Catalonia and the rest of Spain.

"Bulls are bulls and politics is politics," he told reporters in Barcelona.

Jose Montilla, the president of the Catalan regional government, has given his 37 socialist lawmakers in the assembly the freedom to vote according to their consciences.

A vote in block by the Catalan socialists, which had initially been expected, would have guaranteed a defeat for the motion to ban bullfighting.

The vote comes as the bullfighting sector - which generates about 40,000 jobs - feels the effects of Spain's economic downturn, with many smaller municipalities dropping bullfights from their annual "fiestas" to save money.