The Admiral Benelux (ABNL) is the

Commanding Officer The commanding officer (CO) or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitu ...

of the combined

military staff A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, Enlisted rank, enlisted and civilian staff who serve the commanding officer, commander of a D ...

of the

Royal Netherlands Navy The Royal Netherlands Navy ( nl, Koninklijke Marine, links=no) is the naval force of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. During the 17th century, the navy of the Dutch Republic (1581–1795) was one of the most powerful naval forces in the world an ...

and the Naval Component of the Belgian Armed Forces. The position of ABNL was created together with the combination of the Staffs of the two contributing navies on March 28, 1995, in the BeNeSam Accord. The ABNL is responsible for the combined operations of the Dutch and Belgian navies and can be tasked with the responsibility for the operational readiness and deployment of the combined fleets in joint operations, both in war- and peacetime operations. Most of all the ABNL is responsible for the efficient use of joint material and personnel and oversees the joint training programs of the two navies.''Admiraal BeNeLux - Organisatie''
— organizational structure of the ABNL command, from the website of the

Belgian Navy The Belgian Navy, officially the Belgian Naval Component ( nl, Marinecomponent; french: Composante marine; german: Marinekomponente ) of the Belgian Armed Forces, is the naval service of Belgium. History Early history The Belgian Navy w ...

. The Commander is Vice Admiral

René Tas René Tas, is a vice admiral of the Dutch Navy, he is the Commander of the Royal Netherlands Navy after replacing vice admiral Rob A. Kramer from 9 September 2021. He is also the Admiral Benelux (ABNL) which is the Commanding Officer of the co ...

who is also serving as the Commander of the Naval Forces.

Organizational structure

The Admiral Benelux is the commanding officer of the joint staffs who, together, form the ''Directorate of Operations (DOPS)''. The ABNL is assisted by the ''Deputy ABNL (DABNL)''. Under the terms of the BENESAM Accord, the ABNL position is held by the

Commander of the Royal Netherlands Navy The Commander of the Royal Netherlands Navy ( nl, Commandant Zeestrijdkrachten) (CZsk) is the highest-ranking officer of the Royal Netherlands Navy. The CZsk reports directly to the Chief of the Netherlands Defence Staff. The position of CZsk ...

. The DABNL position is held by the

Commander of the Belgian Naval Component The Commander of the Belgian Navy () is the head of the Naval operations and the administrative head in the Belgian Navy, and is under the Chief of Defence The chief of defence (or head of defence) is the highest ranked commissioned officer of ...

. The DOPS is headquartered with the

Den Helder Den Helder () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Den Helder occupies the northernmost point of the North Holland peninsula. It is home to the country's main naval base. From here the Royal TESO ...

. The main body of the ABNL command is the DOPS, although there is also a ''Directorate of Operational Support (DOST)''. The two together have operational control of the operational units of the two fleets. DOPS is divided into three branches: command, operational and support. :*The command section of DOPS consists of the Staff Bureau and the ''Maritime Situation Center (MARSITCEN)''. The MARSITCEN is organized into a NATO standard N-structure and functions as the link of DOPS to the Belgian and Dutch Naval Command Centers. :*The operations branch of DOPS consists mainly of the ''Netherlands Maritime Force (NLMARFOR)''. NLMARFOR consists of the operational staff that can take direct command to execute missions and is equipped with the logistics facilities to coordinate naval missions and exercises. In addition to NLMARFOR, the operations branch of DOPS consists of the joint training programs for naval personnel: the ''Sea Training Command (STC)'' for the navies and the ''Marine Training Command (MTC)'' for the marine corps. :*The support branch of DOPS consists of the ''Marine Warfare Centre (MWC)''. This center comprises two different groups (the ''Maritime Doctrine and Tactics Centre'' and the ''Centre for Operational Data, Analysis and METOC''). The MWC is responsible for analysis and management of operational, tactical and strategic data used by DOPS.

History of the ABNL command

The combined staff (sometimes referred to as the Benelux Admiralty) is a result of developing naval cooperation between the

and the

. This cooperation was first geared at mutual battlefield cooperation and later at mutual defense in the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

as part of

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...

Allied Command Channel Allied Command Channel (ACCHAN) was one of three major North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commands from 1952 to 1994. Commander-in-Chief Channel was a Major NATO Commander (MNC). The Command was established in 1952 to defend the sea areas a ...

(ACCHAN). One of ACCHAN's subordinate commands was the Benelux Sub-Area Channel Command (BENECHAN) based in

and consisting of the Belgian and Dutch navies. After the end of the Cold War the focus of the Dutch-Belgian cooperation turned more and more to the efficient use of equipment and personnel (also driven by cutbacks in military spending after the collapse of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

). The ABNL was created in a series of treaties known as the Belgium-Netherlands Cooperation Accord (BENESAM, for ''Belgisch-Nederlandse Samenwerking''), starting in 1948:''Admiraal BeNeLux - Historiek''
— Historical overview of the ABNL command, from the website of the

. *10 May 1948: Signing of the first BENESAM Accord. *27 March 1975: The ABNL is established for wartime operations. *15 October 1985: Revision of the BENESAM Accord. *28 March 1995: The

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

State Secretary of Defence and the

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

Minister of Defence A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...

sign the ABNL Accord. *29 May 1995: The Commander of Dutch Naval Forces (''Commandant Zeemacht Nederland (CZMNED)'') and the Belgian Chief of Naval Staff (''Stafchef Zeemacht (ZS)'') sign an accord regarding operational cooperation. *1 January 1996: The ABNL command is established in the Naval Headquarters and Coast Guard Centre (MHKC) in

. *1 May 1996: The Commander of Dutch Naval Forces (''Commandant Zeemacht Nederland (CZMNED)'') and the Belgian Chief of Naval Staff (''Stafchef Zeemacht (ZS)'') sign an accord regarding joint training. The BENESAM Accord is currently undergoing revision, with an eye towards even closer cooperation between the two fleets.

References

{{Reflist

External links

*
Official website of the Royal Netherlands Navy
*
Official website of the Belgian Naval Component
Military ranks of the Royal Netherlands Navy Belgian Navy