The South East European Cooperation Process (SEECP) was founded in 1996 by the declaration adopted at the meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the economies of South-Eastern Europe.
 
As the only regional cooperation forum that includes all 13 participants in Southeast Europe, SEECP is the most comprehensive format in the region.
Türkiye, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia (founding members), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2001), Croatia (2004), Moldova (2006), Montenegro (2007), Slovenia (2010) and Kosovo* (2014) take part as participants of the SEECP.

In line with the agreements within the SEECP, official documents contain only the names of the capitals of the respective economies, which are also refered as participants.

As a political dialogue and consultation forum where regional issues can be addressed at the highest level, SEECP aims at enhancing good-neighborly relations and promoting dialogue and cooperation among its participants with the perspective of integration of SEE into European and Euro-Atlantic structures.

As defined in the “Charter on Good-Neighbourly Relations, Stability, Security and Cooperation in SEE” adopted in 2000, the main objectives of the SEECP are enhancement of political and security cooperation; fostering economic cooperation and enlargement of cooperation in the fields of human dimension, democracy, justice and combating illegal activities.
The SEECP Chairmanship-in-Office is carried out by the willing participants, following consensus of all participants a year in advance, for one year between July 1 and June 30 of the following year.

The SEECP participants meet at the level of Heads of State and Government at the annual Summit. Additionally, during each Chairmanship, Ministers of Foreign Affairs get together at least twice at one informal and one formal meeting. In addition to other high-level meetings at the Ministerial level, workshops, projects and events in different formats are held between sectoral experts to promote specific regional cooperation initiatives in line with the priorities of the Chairman-in-Office.

Decisions within SEECP are taken by consensus.

The Troika of the SEECP, composed from the current, previous and incoming SEECP Chairs-in-Office ensures the continuity of efforts.

Regional Cooperation Council (RCC)  was officially launched at the meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the South-East European Cooperation Process (SEECP) in Sofia, on 27 February 2008 and based in Sarajevo, and functions as the operational arm of the SEECP.
 
RCC takes an active role in the implementation of regional programmes within the framework of the general political guidelines set by the SEECP.

Inter-parliamentary cooperation between the SEECP participants was established at the institutional level through the SEECP Parliamentary Assembly, which held its first meeting in 2014. SEECP-PA is chaired by the Speaker of Parliament of the SEECP Chair-in-Office.
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* This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence