of Canada's coastal state dominance of NAFO, the decline of Canada's influence in protecting the fish stocks of the Northwest Atlantic, and the start of the EU's ascendance into the leadership position that Canada had filled for some 25 years. It began when Canada pushed a decision on depth limits for turbot fisheries to a vote and lost for the first time. That caused a lot of domestic concern in Canada, which basically required that the NAFO treaty should be changed. In September 2005, the contracting parties agreed to begin the task of reforming NAFO with an EU-Canadian ad hoc working group, chaired by the EU as a result of growing pressure from Canada to reform NAFO. In 2006, the working group came out with its first draft proposals based on the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC). The proposed treaty gave much more power to the distant water fleet states than the 1979 NAFO treaty. Some of the first drafts also gave NAFO the right to regulate fisheries within Canada's EEZ. The draft proposals also changed the voting procedures so that a two-thirds vote had to be present. However, it also changed the objection procedure that had made it possible for the EU to claim that Canada had broken international law when the EU objected to the turbot quota allocated to the EU in 1995, and Canada seized Estai. The new amendments were presented in September 2007 and went into force in May 2017, after two thirds of the contracting parties had ratified the agreement. Newlyn incident Although Spain was getting political support from the EU, including naval support from Germany among others, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland supported Canada. British Prime Minister John Major risked his status within the EU community by speaking out against Spain. That made some British fishing boats start flying Canadian flags to show their support. That brought the conflict to European waters when a Cornish fishing boat, Newlyn, flew the Canadian flag and was arrested by a French ship, which believed it to be Canadian. That dragged the British and the Irish from their position of passive backing into full support of the Canadians. Overnight, Canadian flags began to fly from all manner of British and Irish vessels. The rest of the EU rallied behind France and Spain but hesitated to make any mobilizations against the British, the Irish, or