The Ministry of Culture of the Valencian Community will recover, in collaboration with other communities, the National Bullfighting Award, suppressed by the Government. The new award announced this Friday in Valencia will have the same financial award, 30,000 euros, as the National award. The first vice president, minister of the sector (Vox) and former bullfighter, Vicente Barrera, has announced that this award will be maintained as long as the “censorship” of the Ministry lasts, whom he has accused of “single thinking.” The venue for the new award announced by Barrera will rotate among the interested territories.
Minister Urtasun announced on May 3 that in 2024 the awarding of the National Bullfighting Award, an award created in 2011, would be annulled and that the proceedings had begun for its definitive suppression. This Friday Barrera explained that after the announcement of the suppression of the award, there were some proposals from the Valencian Community, Madrid and Extremadura to recover this recognition, and now they are talking with the Culture Ministers of the different autonomies to see who wants it the most. join the proposal. “I haven’t necessarily driven it. We joined the Extremadura proposal and now we are talking among the Culture Councilors of different communities, but it is not that I necessarily lead this,” he noted. “We are going to give that award in 2024 and in subsequent years.”
The Vox politician has indicated that the place where it will be delivered has not been decided, because it is not yet known which communities will participate, but he has indicated that the idea is that the location of the delivery ceremony can be rotated. Barrera has declined to list the territories that will join the award until there is official confirmation. “We are working on it, those who want will join voluntarily and those who don’t, there is no problem,” he said.
This award would thus be added to the new award that the Department of Justice will grant in the Bullfighting Awards of the Valencian Community ‘Va de Bous’, an ‘Honorable Mention in Defense of Cultural Heritage Bullfighting’. Regarding this, the Minister of Justice and Interior, Elisa Núñez, has considered that from the institutions “traditions must be supported.” She has indicated that it has been decided to give that special mention to bullfighting in order to “make visible an absolutely Spanish tradition” and that, as an institution, it is their turn to “defend and promote.” Regarding the criticism of the celebration of these celebrations, she stated that “there are many opinions” and there are also many people who think that “it is a party.” “A party that can be seen in our streets, that moves our economy and that allows peaceful coexistence among our citizens,” she added.
Last year, Núñez recalled, 8,685 bullfighting celebrations were held throughout the Valencian Community. Thus, he has pointed out that the ‘Va de Bous’ awards were already held and that now they have considered it “good” to add that mention to “make visible something that is an absolutely Spanish tradition and that it is up to us as institutions to defend and promote.”