A total of 16 factory ships belonging to the main Spanish shipowners began to set sail this week from the Galician ports of Vigo and Marín with the aim of positioning themselves in the South Atlantic fishing grounds at the end of August for the winter season of the Loligo squid.

This operation involves major Iberian corporations such as Copemar, Pereira, Morarpez, Rampesca, Pescanova, and Robin M. Lee . For decades, these firms have maintained joint ventures with companies based in the Malvina Islands—such as Fortuna Ltd., Seafish (Malvinas), Petrel Fishing Company , and Beauchene Fishing Company —to obtain permits from the British administration and subsequently land their catches in the European market.

This is an illegal and illegitimate exploitation of Argentine natural resources, as it takes place in waters subject to a sovereignty dispute recognized by the United Nations.

Although the Spanish press is trying to promote an optimistic narrative based on the 42,000 tons of Loligo fish caught in the first season of 2026, the reality of the fishing grounds is one of profound instability. In fact, the second season in 2025 had to be prematurely closed by the authorities of the established colony to prevent the stock from collapsing. It ended with a meager 18,000 tons landed due to the decline in reproductive biomass.

Tax adjustments and patches for 2027: The Illex gamble

Behind the commercial mystique of Vigo's fishing companies, official documents from the British occupation administration reveal a critical situation. The Chief Scientist and Licensing Advisor for the colony, Dr. Andreas Winter, presented a proposed tariff and fishing effort adjustment—measured in Vessel Units (VU)—to the Fisheries Advisory Commission for the 2027 fiscal year, after these adjustments had been frozen due to previous distortions caused by unauthorized bycatch.

The technical report submitted by Winter acknowledges an alarming reality: most species are showing declining Total Allowable Catches (TACs), and this trend is highly likely to continue. Faced with this biological predicament, the colonial tax system will implement the following adjustments:

As Winter himself acknowledged before the Commission, the life cycle of the Illex squid is barely a year and its populations vary drastically from season to season, making this increase a highly unstable fiscal variable for the colony's finances.

Despite the projections of Galician operators, internal documents from the British Empire show that extraction pressure is depleting the resource. Faced with the decline of resident species, the colony is forced to increase revenue from migratory squid; a resource that depends entirely on what happens in the Argentine continental Exclusive Economic Zone and at the 201-mile limit.