Government Extends Mediterranean Fleet's Fishing Days to Ensure Christmas Seafood Supply

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has allocated an additional 13 fishing days to the Mediterranean trawler fleet to ensure their activity until the end of the year and to secure the supply of fish and seafood for the upcoming Christmas season.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, announced this decision, which will benefit the 557 boats operating in the Mediterranean and its coastal surroundings. With this new allocation, the same number of fishing days achieved in 2024 will be reached.

Planas acknowledged that these months are of great economic importance for the trawler fleet due to the Christmas campaign. "We rule out any possibility of a shortage of fish or seafood during this Christmas," he emphasized.

With this measure, following "numerous conversations" with the European Commission, the Ministry ensures that the Mediterranean fleet can plan their fishing trips until the end of the fiscal year. "This extraordinary allocation provides shipowners and crews with certainty, stability, and planning capacity to face the last months of the year with confidence," he stated.

"We understand that the positive evolution of fish populations, as seen in recent scientific reports, fully justifies the measure, and therefore, it resolves the issue for this year. Meanwhile, on December 11 and 12, we will discuss in Brussels what pertains to 2026," he noted, highlighting that obtaining these days was the result of "intense technical work."

It should be remembered that the European Commission reduced the fishing effort for 2025 to 27 fishing days, a decision that the Spanish Government managed to reverse by implementing management measures related to mesh size, fishing bans, and fishing gear.

With these measures, around 130 fishing days on average per vessel have been recovered, and now, this additional ten fishing days are added.

"We are fully committed to defending the interests of the sector to ensure the continuity of activity in a context of fish species recovery. This measure comes to provide reassurance and full support to the sector that deserves it," Planas reiterated.