In October 1994, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Brian Tobin, contacted the Spanish and Portuguese ambassadors and asked them to honour the NAFO regulation requiring countries to inspect their flag vessels to insure that they were following the NAFO technical regulations. No improvement occurred. In 1993, the NAFO council had already decided to introduce and test new inspection measures, such as on-board observers, on 10% of the vessels fishing in NAFO-regulated waters outside the Canadian EEZ and Vessel Monitoring System (VMS). The European Commission had tried to extend its jurisdiction and the power of its inspectors in 1993, but had been turned down by the EU council. However the EU council could only try to persuade national governments to follow the internationally agreed rules as well as the rules within EU waters.