Members include representatives from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

Both of the latter were technically under the control of the main commission, members of which were – at the beginning – Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, the USSR, and Yugoslavia.

When the treaty was adopted, Yugoslavia had already been expelled from the Cominform, the political grouping of all the Communist parties in the Soviet bloc.

Yet it still voted down the line with the other non-Western countries, nearly 200 miles of the Danube flowing through its territory and the only navigable channel through the Iron Gate being on the Yugoslav side of the Romanian border.

[7]Another report, however, stated that it was the commission itself that "had made a determined effort to avoid accepting Yugoslavia's share in the expenses," which were even larger than the Yugoslav contribution to the United Nations.

At the session of November 11, 1949, a Soviet proposal was adopted vesting complete powers of appointment, organization, leadership, and negotiation in the secretary, who was the Russian representative.

In August, Yugoslavia told the USSR in a note that the commission's rules were "contrary in letter and spirit" to the 1948 convention, giving the Soviets control of the waterway in violation of national sovereignty.

"[10] Next, Yugoslavia proposed that the top posts should be rotated among the six members every three years, but the commission rejected that suggestion in June 1953.

It ordered at a Moscow meeting that plans be made to raise the level of the river by dams so seagoing ships could move farther upstream.

[16] The International Court of Justice was called upon to judge the case and found Hungary had breached their legal obligations in almost all points, ordering that the project be completed.

According to this decision the full powers of all representatives of the Russian Federation have been declined; they have been excluded from the participation in all meetings at the Danube Commission and its working bodies until the restoration of peace, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.