**Abstract**

The European Union is the organization that currently has in its structure most countries of the European continent. Founded initially as a trade union between Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg after the Second World War, it has evolved over time to the political union accomplished in 1993, along with the organization name change from European Economic Community (EEC) into the European Union (EU). Si‐ multaneously with the EU expansion by adopting new member states continued sustain‐ able development of economic activities within the community. The rural European area includes most EU territory and the main component of the population. Therefore, an analysis is required to be made on economic indicators that define EU rural areas, for the highly developed regions in the West and for the new member states from the Central and Eastern European region. The objective of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis on specific economic and social indicators for the rural area of the countries posi‐ tioned in Central and Eastern Europe which are in the position of new EU full members and the level of their contribution to the economy of the union. The paper has an interdis‐ ciplinary character by the fact that reunites principles of disciplines as economics, social and political sciences.

**Keywords:** Interdisciplinary, rural economy, social development, rural area of EU mem‐ bers in Central and Eastern Europe, EU rural space
