The boats now have until 31 July to catch up to 6,900 tons of the species, though Brussels may revise this number up if stocks allow it.
This is according to comments by the Portuguese Minister of the Sea, Ana Paula Vitorino, who said last weekend she is very confident that Portugal could see the sardine quota currently authorised by Brussels being boosted.
The minister, who was in Matosinhos on Sunday night to watch the fishermen return to sea to capture the species for the first time this year, said that studies had shown an increase in the stock of sardines in domestic waters.
“As soon as we came into government we provided funding for a scientific Cruise and the data it collected shows there are more sardines in the water”, she said.
Ana Paula Vitorino added that if the information is confirmed “the current quota of 14,000 tons shared with Spain could go up to 19,000 tons”.
“This increase would extend the time of the sardine fishing season, which is good for the fishermen and for the entire economic sector”, she said.
From August last year sardine fishermen in Portuguese ports started to gradually be banned from catching the small but massively popular fish after reaching their quotas.
In January this year the sardine fishermen were issued with a full blanket ban to allow the species to reproduce.
Announced in the Diário da República government gazette, the two-month ‘biological defence’ interdiction came into effect on 1 January 2016 and was due to remain in place until the end of February.”Fishermen and ship-owners affected by the stoppage received a total of €2.71 million in compensation by December 2015.”In 2015 the Iberia sardine quota was limited to 19,000 tons, 13,000 of which were given to Portugal, and the rest allocated to Spain.