(Adds government's reaction)

Maltese and Gozitan fishermen have been ordered to stop fishing for tuna even though the season has just started, the Labour Party's spokesman for fisheries, Joe Sammut said.

Dr Sammut said in a statement he wanted to express his and his party's solidarity with the fishermen for the way they were being treated. Their anger, he said, was justified.

He said fishermen who used a fishing line to catch tuna were being told that the quota allocated to them had been reached. Maltese and Gozitan fishermen had been deceived, Malta's geographical position and its size were ignored and the action taken was not in the interest of the Maltese economy.

It was shameful that so many families were being financially destroyed and the government was not doing anything to protect traditional line fishing which was not destying tuna or other fish. This was when the government was allowing and permitting net fishing, a system which was not used by Maltese fishermen.

In its reaction, the government said the opposition was taking an irresponsible position because tuna fishing was regulated by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna of which Malta was a member, for the sake of sustainability.

Fishermen benefitted the most from this programme because sustainability would ensure that fishermen would be able to continue fishing for this species for years to come.

The government said that as soon as the Fisheries Division was told that the quota had been reached, it informed fishermen, through their cooperatives, to immediately stop fishing for tuna. This counted both for line and net fishing.

It pointed out that that national quota had been agreed with the fisheries cooperatives.