Chiefs of European Navies

The Chiefs of European Navies (CHENS: CH iefs of E uropean N avie S ) are an informal association of commanders of European naval forces.

history

The CHENS cooperation began in 1990 under the title Heads of Navies of Northern Europe with a first meeting of the commanders of six Northern European NATO navies who wanted to discuss the consequences of ending the Cold War . At the follow-up meeting in 1991, representatives of the twelve navies of the WEU countries took part. In the course of time, membership grew to 24 in the course of NATO expansion and the opening up to representatives of all European navies.

organization

The CHENS have no organizational elements of their own. The chair changes annually between the participants. A two-day conference is held annually, hosted by the chairman of CHENS. The German representative is the inspector of the navy .

Working groups have been set up that meet at irregular intervals to deal with the topics agreed at the conferences. There are currently three working groups:

• The Maritime Strategies Dialogue working group conducts the dialogue with the United States Navy and other non-European navies on questions of maritime strategy.
• The Maritime Security Operations working group deals with questions of maritime security including the development of a joint civil-military maritime security strategy.
• The Maritime cooperation with Africa working group deals with questions of maritime security in African waters and possibilities to support African states in the perception of their maritime security interests.

Since 1999, the CHENS have been organizing an annual one-week seminar for young naval officers (European Seminar for Young Officers; ESYO), which serves to get to know and understand each other. At the seminars, current marine topics are worked out together.

In addition to the CHENS, there are army and air force commanders' organizations comparable to Finabel and EURAC.

Products

Since 2002, the CHENS have published a number of documents on various topics that were previously written in working groups. These include:

• A General Concept of Operation for European Navies (2003)
• A vision for the role of European naval forces in 2025 (2005)
• A Civil-Military Strategy for European Maritime Security Operations (2007)
• A comparison of the US Maritime Strategy with previous CHENS documents (2008)
• A maritime operations concept (2010)

Web links

• CHENS homepage (English)
• CHENS presentation at the US Navy's International Seapower Symposium 2007

literature

• Markus Nolte; Bodo Rathgeber. CHENS 2007, The Forum of European Naval Commanders . In: Marineforum 9-2007, p. 4ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Background information on FINABEL Homepage Finabel (accessed February 20, 2017)
2. ↑ Homepage of the European Air Chiefs' Conference ( Memento of the original from January 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed December 25, 2012)  
3. ↑ CHENS documents (English) ( Memento of the original from May 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ GEMCO ( Memento of the original from June 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.1 MB)  
5. ↑ ENV 2025 ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 278 kB)  
6. ↑ MSO Strategy ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 82 kB)  
7. ↑ Comparison of the US New Maritime Strategy and the CHENS documents ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 83 kB)  
8. ↑ CHENS MOC ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 202 kB)