With Christmas getting closer, the need arises to fill the refrigerator for the family dinners that are coming next month. However, this year one of the star products on the table: seafood.
According to what Catalan fishermen have warned, the days of trawling that are currently underway have already been exhausted. allowed by the European Union in the Mediterranean, but prawns and prawns are in danger. For this reason, from the sector they demand power keep workingas reported Antenna 3.
In the coming weeks, many boats will remain grounded. The fishermen fear that, being in full peak consumption periodthere will not be enough fresh local produce. Therefore, the seafood that will reach the fishmongersthey will be more expensive or imported and frozen.
The situation has been defined as “critical”: at boats trawlers have been allowed to go out 130 days a year, a figure that last year reached 230. Now, the majority of fishermen They have exhausted all allowed days.
The Barcelona fishermen’s brotherhood has calculated that the losses They could be higher than 25%, they report from the aforementioned medium. This is a trend that is already noticeable in the market: less varietyskyrocketing prices and customers thinking twice about what to buy.
This general increase in prices has made many choose to advance the purchase and freeze. Others have directly decided to change the menu for options that better fit their budget. From the fishmongers they warn: “If the price shoots up, we will not be able to bring fish”.
The Generalitat has asked Brussels for more regulation flexible. He has assured that there is enough fish and shrimp on the Catalan coast to extend the fishing days. The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Òscar Ordeig, has announced that they have been delivering reports technicians who show that the quota falls short: given that there are so many shrimp, in a few days they consume the maximum quotasomething he considers “absolute absurdity.”
Ordeig has opined that even the European Commissioner for Fisheries, Costas Kadis, would have given them the reason. However, he regrets that this support has not translated into real changes: “We have a feeling of ridicule and harm towards the activity,” he said.
On the other hand, the councilor warns that the sector is on a path that can no turning back: the fleet is decreasing and more and more fishermen are willing to leave the profession because they feel that they are being drowning.
The final decision will be taken at the EU Council of Agriculture and Fisheries Ministers, which has been scheduled for on December 11 and 12. This meeting has raised great expectations among the fishermen of Andalusia, Murcia, Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community, who have been subjected in recent years to continued cuts.
According to the secretary of the Federation of brotherhoods of the Province of Alicante, Juan Mulet, “the situation we are going through is delicateand it would be very important for Brussels to lift the pressure on Mediterranean trawling, because it is proving very complicated to be profitable with so few days to be able to go out to work,” they report from the newspaper Information.
