Paper presents the main changes brought by the new EU Rural Development Regulation and discusses the main open issues that refer to its implementation in the period of the New Financial Perspective (NFP) of the EU (2007-2013). The paper attempts to assess the significance of these changes on the future implementation of rural development in Slovenia. The future allocation of funds for Rural Development from the Community budget to Slovenia is not likely to increase significantly. Public expenditure in this policy field is also highly dependent from the future status of Slovenia in the EU Cohesion policy. In terms of implementation, the main risks refer to the unbalanced expenditure for various groups of rural development measures in Slovenia. This imbalance could impair the future implementation of some newly introduced rural development measures (e.g. agri-environmental measures, compliance with the Community standards). The paper states that these risks can be controlled with careful policy programming. In the long term, Slovenia would benefit from a better balancing of rural development measures.