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The new rural development paradigm was developed as a response to the inefficiency of the old development model. The expansion of the EU to the Mediterranean countries (Greece 1981, Portugal and Spain 1986) has pointed out large regional disparities, especially in rural regions. Thus, common agricultural policy was developed between 1957 and 1962 when it finally came into force in the EU. The agricultural sector and the farmers were in the forefront as the carriers of the agricultural activity. The aim was to increase food production to the maximum and strengthen the competitiveness of the production. The old paradigm was in contradiction with the free trade principles, due to the use of refunds, which protected the EU producers against their competition. Under pressure of the developed countries, the EU decided to adopt a new development model. Leader programmes (started in 1991/1992) and Agenda 2000 (declared 1997) set the foundations for the new rural development paradigm, which became global in 2006. They followed the examples of good practice. Exogenous rural policy model was substituted for the endogenous one. The new development paradigm considers the rural area as an integral space. Development initiatives are generated in the local environment. The ideas are being networked which includes policies by different economic sectors on a multiinstitutional level. Awareness and recognition of rural values, ecological, cultural and social ones, is the main motivational factor in local communities when setting up development projects. The key requirements for success are: flexibility, competences, efficiency and synergy, which leads to a deviation from unilateral sectorial dependency to broad intersectoral cooperation and integral approach to the rural area. The main interest in our research was how these new approaches influenced the changes in Slovenian agriculture, which was studied by way of studying the changes in land usage in the Prekmurje region (NUTS 3). The chosen region is an atypical Slovenian region, the least economically developed, largely rural, with relatively low forestation level and poor traffic accessibility. The relief of the landscape and composition of the soil are suitable for agricultural activities. PODRAVINA Volumen 13, broj 26, Str. 20 38 Koprivnica 2014. Podravina 21 L. LOBER, I. ŽIERNA TH E IN LU EN C E O F TH E N EW R U R A L D EV LO P M EN T Simultaneously, we were identifying changes in the usage of space and evaluated the influence of the new development paradigm on development of agriculture and the rural area. The influence of the new rural development paradigm on changes in land use in the period 2000 – 2012 was evaluated by the analysis of spatial changes. We analysed the areas of receding field surfaces in connection with the areas of receding arable surfaces. We were interested in the influence of these changes on the newly built-up surfaces in the area of Pomurje, as a positive indicator of the new development paradigm, in newly-created overgrowing areas, as the factor of efficient land usage, which proves that the development initiatives in the environment are insufficient. By way of analysing changes in ageing of the population we confirmed the assumption that the changes in land use are co-dependent on introducing the new rural development paradigm.