For centuries, the people of the Danube countries have relied upon the resources of the basin. Today this dependence is as strong as ever across the entire region, with the basin providing domestic drinking water, industrial and agricultural water supply, hydroelectric power generation, navigation, tourism, recreation and fisheries.

Despite this uniting feature, the Danube River links together countries with vastly differing social and economic conditions, which has huge consequences for the management of the basin.

Political changes of the late 1980s meant rapid change for Central-Lower Danube states, with emerging free-market democracies and the associated impacts of globalisation, privatisation and deregulation. Simultaneously, much industrial and agricultural output collapsed leading to high unemployment.

More recently, the countries have made huge progress, successfully adapting production to international standards. Four Danube basin countries join the European Union in 2004, with others following by 2010: a major advance in combating national economic differences and bonding the basin politically.