“Los Challenges to the international order require a coordinated response“explains the general admiral Antonio Piñeiro, Chief of Staff of the Navy (AJEMA) in a note released by that branch of the armies on the occasion of a multinational event that starts this Wednesday. Until Thursday the 7th, It is the Navy’s turn to host a meeting of 35 heads of European navies in Madrid. It is the annual event of the CHENSthe Chiefs of European Ships Meeting, which has become high level observatory of maritime security.
The unstable international climate favors this conversion. In his statement, Admiral Piñeiro highlights that the meeting is being held “in a context of special strategic significance“, and the coordinated response that in his opinion is needed must be “based on cooperation.” This year the meeting invites partners from Latin America, representatives of the EU, NATO and the United States. The head of the Spanish Navy says that “coordination between organizations and nations is more important than ever to safeguard freedom of navigation, defend international law and preserve peace at sea.”
The purpose of the meeting is to share analysis at the highest military level, identify threats and strengthen cooperation. The Navy considers the event to be a forum of growing importance in recent years, as the maritime environment has become a “central stage for the security and prosperity of Europe.”
High strategic value
This central stage is a means through which a good part of Europeans’ livelihoods pass. In its presentation of CHENS 2026, the Navy remembers that more than 80% of world trade passes through the sea, that “between 95 and 99% of the world’s internet data is transmitted through submarine fiber optic cables,” or that “almost half of the vehicles we use are imported by sea”, among other examples of the strategic value of this domain.
As if pointing out the direct relationship between the Hormuz blockade and the prices displayed today on gas station signs, the Navy also points out that “any alteration in this environment has an effectimmediate effects in everyday life.
The 35 chiefs of naval forces convened in Madrid will analyze problems in “key regions.” Among them, the Navy considers the Baltic, the Indo-Pacific, the Red Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. But, in a meeting in which the networking and personal relationships between admirals are strengthened, not only will the map be looked at, but also at the ways of proceeding in the maritime domain, and the iIntegration of naval power in the other domains that armies contemplate today: land, air, space, cyberspace and the human brain – or cognitive domain – as a sixth combat scenario.
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