Rural development as its main objective has to improve the living standards of people living in rural areas. By joining the European Union, all countries, together with Croatia, get the opportunity to use the funds that are offered. One of the options which got available is the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). The aim of this pape is to demonstrate the usefulness of EAFRD for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the period from 2014 to 2020. The Fund's goal is to reduce economic disparities between the regions through agricultural development. The EAFRD measures themselves relate to investment in agricultural activities, support for less developed areas, human resources, environmental protection and the like. And these measures are further complemented by measures for forestry, and measures to promote the development of rural areas. This will be done through an analysis of EU documents, highlighting key decisions and plans. Furthermore, this document will attempt to provide a comparative analysis of the researched countries of the European Union, which is an analysis of how much EAFRD is used and how this has affected the development of their rural economic sector, with a more detailed overview of the use of the EAFRD in the Republic of Croatia, as well as Estonia, Romania and Poland.Through a comparative analysis of selected countries of the European Union, the used EAFRD funds are presented, as well as an overview of the agriculture of those countries and their positioning in the European Union.