The Danube Cooperation Process (hereinafter DCP) is a regional initiative launched on the 27th of May 2002 on the 1st DCP Ministerial Conference in Vienna. The DCP was created on the initiative of Austria, Romania, the European Commission and the former Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and is based on a regional cooperation between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the Danube River Basin countries, - i.e. Austria, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine - who enjoy full participant status within the DCP and are the owners of this regional cooperation process. In addition to the before mentioned Danube River Basin countries, the European Commission and the Stability Pact for SEE also enjoy full participant status. With the closure of the Stability pact for SEE, its seat within the DCP was overtaken by its successor, the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC).

France, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Russia, Turkey and the United States enjoyed guest status at the first DCP Ministerial meeting. Regional organisations such as the Danube Commission, the International Commission for the Protection of Danube River (ICPDR), the International Sava River Basin Commission (ISRBC), the Working Community of the Danube Regions (ARGE Donaulaender), the Steering Committee of Corridor VII, the Central European Initiative (CEI), Adriatic Ionian Initiative, Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI), South East European Cooperation Process (SEECP), Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) and Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) are key partners to the process.

The DCP is based on a Declaration on the Establishment of the Danube Cooperation Process, which represents a kind of "constitution" of the Process. It sets the perspectives, principles, objectives and areas of cooperation to be strengthened within the framework of the DCP. The Declaration states that the DCP shall be a "standing Process founded on bi-yearly conferences at the level of the Foreign Ministries", especially within six priority dimensions: economic development, navigation, environmental protection, tourism, culture and sub-regional cooperation.

At the launching conference, the document Principles and Working Methods of the Danube Cooperation Process was also adopted. This document set the basis of the more concrete organisational functioning of the DCP. Thus, with it, it was foreseen that regular meetings on the level of the Senior Officials / Political Directors of Foreign Ministries shall review accomplishments, monitor the progress made and the priorities achieved in the periods between the Ministerial gatherings as well as do the preparatory work for the Ministerial Conferences including the guiding and priority documents to be adopted by the DCP Ministers.

So far, three DCP Ministerial Conferences took place until now: the inaugural conference in 2002, 27th of May, in Vienna, Austria; in 2004, 14th of July in Bucharest, Romania and in 2007, 17-18th of April, in Belgrade, Republic of Serbia. Since 2008, the chiarmanship of the DCP is held by Ukraine.