The article is devoted to the analysis of the policy of the European Union regarding its impact on the socio-economic orientations of the development of rural areas of Ukraine. A retrospective analysis of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union was carried out from its crucial influence on forming new institutional conditions for the functioning and development of Ukrainian agriculture and rural areas. Features of Chapter 17, "Agriculture and Development of Rural Areas" of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, are outlined. The structure of the General Directorate of the European Commission for the Development of Agriculture and Rural Territories has been determined. It is substantiated that a qualitatively new level of cooperation between Ukraine and the European Union means not only the need to adapt Ukrainian legislation to the regulatory and legal field of the European Union but also, first of all, to learn from the experience of developing and implementing relevant programs, including in terms of promoting the development of rural areas. It has been proven that the development of rural areas is one of the main directions of the Common Agrarian Policy of the European Union. It was determined that at the national and regional levels of the European Union, several concepts (approaches) exist in parallel, from which three concepts of the development of rural areas can be clearly distinguished: the first conceptual approach identifies rural development with the general modernization of agriculture and the agro-food complex; the second conceptual approach relates rural development exclusively to the reduction of differences between the most backward rural areas and the remaining sectors of the economy; the third conceptual approach identifies rural development with the development of rural areas as a whole through the use of all resources that are on their territory and integration between all components and industries at the local level.