He said the new mission, which would be conducted in partnership with Spain, aims to monitor the state of the resource to assess the fishing possibilities in 2019.

A scientific opinion from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) issued on 13 July, recommended banning sardine captures in Portugal and Spain in 2019 because of the reduction in the stock seen over recent years.

The ICES said at the time that the stock of sardines aged one year or older had fallen since 2006 and was now less than 400,000 tonnes.

The Council also recommended a ban for this year but Portugal, Spain and the European Commission (EC) later defined a fishing plan where they agreed the two Iberian countries could catch up to 15,000 tonnes.