More money. They can go fishing elsewhere, officials in Mauritania say. No one is forcing them to operate in its waters. In 2026, precisely, Galician capital acquired what little remained of the Canary Islands’ fishing industry, with Unión Martín bought from financial group Alantra. From Galicia, they have turned the Canary Islands’ business into a financial asset, and Mauritania will not accept being taken for a ride from Vigo. For Mauritanian authorities, one thing is to help their neighbors in the Canary Islands and quite another to disguise themselves as islanders. The fish landed in the islands is practically negligible, judging by figures from Puertos del Estado. At this point, the impact on Canary Islands companies in the archipelago is minimal, whether or not an agreement is reached.
The Mauritanian government has unexpectedly announced a second biological closure for the artisanal and industrial fleets operating in its territorial waters, starting on October 10, 2026. The measure, reported Thursday by ‘La Dèpeche’ while a Spanish fisheries research vessel is docked at Mauritanian ports for four weeks as part of fisheries diplomacy, was ordered by the Ministry of Fisheries, Maritime and Port Infrastructure following warnings from the Mauritanian Institute for Oceanographic and Fisheries Research (IMROP). It suspends the harvesting of cephalopods and demersal species throughout the country’s fishing grounds. The decision includes limited exceptions for certain crustacean and demersal fish fisheries that show no signs of overexploitation.
The temporary closure of Mauritania’s fishing grounds comes amid heightened diplomatic and commercial tensions with the European Union. The current fisheries partnership agreement between Nouakchott and Brussels expires next November 2026. Negotiations to renew the bilateral protocol have stalled because of a lack of agreement on updating the financial amount the European Union must pay in exchange for access by the Community fleet to African waters.
The uncertainty caused by the deadlock in institutional talks directly affects Spanish vessel owners, with a particular impact on the Galician-owned shellfish fleet based in Andalusian and Canary Islands areas and devoted to catching shrimp. Industry executives have voiced concern over the lack of firm progress just weeks before the current regulatory framework expires, a situation that threatens to leave dozens of vessels without operating licenses in the central-eastern Atlantic.
The current regulatory framework, signed in November 2021 for a six-year period and ratified by the Mauritanian Parliament in 2022, set a maximum annual catch quota of 287,000 metric tons for Community vessels, with most fishing opportunities concentrated on small pelagic species. In exchange for these licenses, Mauritania received annual financial compensation of €61.6 million—broken down into €57.5 million for direct access to marine resources and €4.125 million for the development of the local fishing industry—in addition to the operating fees paid by vessel owners operating under European flags.
The international treaty also requires the European fleet to land its catches at Mauritanian ports, primarily at the maritime terminal in Nouadhibou. This legal mechanism ensures that local inspectors can effectively control the volume of extracted resources, securing the collection of taxes and charges owed to the public coffers of the North African country.
Mauritania’s Excellent Move: It Halts the Octopus Fleet Before EU Talks, Raising Alarm Bells in Galicia was first published on canarymaritime.com.
