Fomento Palace, the seat of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Ministry in Madrid, Spain.
Photo: Adobe Stock.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food in Spain has authorized an average of 13 additional fishing days per vessel for the Mediterranean trawl fleet in 2025.
In total, this represents 7,339 additional fishing days, completing the available effort for vessels subject to fishing-effort limitations. Therefore, the fleet will regain in 2025 the number of fishing days it secured for 2024 through the implementation of the negotiated selectivity measures.
Additionally, this period is crucial for fish sales and economically significant for the 557 vessels operating in the Mediterranean and their surrounding coastal communities.
For this reason, the Ministry aims to ensure that vessels can continue operating through the end of the year and can fish during the Christmas season, a key commercial period.
"This extraordinary allocation provides vessel owners and crews with certainty, stability, and the ability to plan ahead with confidence for the final months of the year," said Minister Luis Planas.
This measure has been made possible thanks to the agreements secured by Spain at the December 2024 meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council, as well as through continuous dialogue with the fishing sector.
At the time, Planas described the European Commission’s proposal to cut fishing opportunities in the Mediterranean Sea by 79% in 2025 as "totally unacceptable."
"We are fully committed to defending the interests of the sector in order to ensure the continuity of activity within a context of recovering fish stocks," he concluded.