**6. Conclusions**

The multidimensional nature of rural areas means that they are extremely heterogeneous in their characteristics, especially across a large EU territorial area, indicating that all relevant features must be an integral part of both development strategies and rural policy

making. When viewed according to other aspects, the division of NUTS 3 according to the EU classification into predominantly urban, intermediate, and predominantly rural areas using only population density does not in fact indicate a particular level of development. Classifications based on a single indicator do not adequately represent the EU's geographical area or rural areas. According to the EU classification, predominantly rural areas of Serbia cannot be compared to predominantly rural areas of Germany, Belgium, Netherland and other highly developed EU countries, especially in terms of socioeconomic performance. All districts in Serbia lagged economically, they were more similar to districts in the NMS, so the main hypothesis of this research was accepted. Comprehensive research is important for improving knowledge for the process of transforming Serbia's rural areas. Our empirical research was formulated in accordance with current methods confirmed in the international literature, which enabled a higher level of understanding of the heterogeneity of rural areas in Serbia and of the main trends present in these areas. The **practical implication** of this is reflected in the application of rural typology at the regional level through the Index of Socioeconomic Performance in the creation of measures of national policies and, specifically, rural development policy measures.

All strategies aimed at rural sustainable development must incorporate and utilize Serbia's as an EU candidate. Considering that the main goal of the EU's rural development policies is to preserve the vitality of rural areas as well as to improve the primary sector in Serbia, it would be strongly advisable for Serbia to apply the European model of agriculture, which is based on competitiveness, multifunctionality, and sustainability. In the sphere of agriculture, the core idea of multifunctionality highlights the various roles agriculture plays. In addition to food production, it involves high food quality by implementing good agricultural practices as well as preservation of the natural environment, which thus contributes to the economic and social development of both villages and of society as a whole.

The research indicated a regional development gap in most rural regions of Serbia in relation to more developed EU countries. This implies the need to abandon the centralized development model with the capital as the centre of decision making. Furthermore, this research can help other candidate countries, such as Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, and Turkey, determine their regions' position in relation to EU regions.

The **originality** of the research was reflected in the approach, which, when it comes to rural regions of Serbia, is not widely represented in the literature. The research of the rural area of Serbia was mostly sector-oriented, while the spatial approach was still in the background. Moreover, the most comprehensive research that analysed the rural areas of Serbia was conducted by Bogdanov et al. [57], but there was no study that dealt with the socioeconomic characteristics of rural regions of Serbia and their comparison with EU countries. Therefore, this paper filled the gap in the literature.

It is clear that the research into development processes in rural areas implies an integrated approach with the use of a much larger number of indicators. However, due to the available data in databases, this paper's main **limitation** was the usage of a scarce number of variables.

**Future research** will move towards identifying other factors contributing to the heterogeneity of rural regions, including demographic and spatial factors. This would mean responding appropriately to the demand for multidimensional access to rural areas in order to create a rural typology that would encompass Serbia and the EU at the regional level. Rural typology at the regional level could point to certain spatial patterns in the development of Serbia's rural areas relative to the EU countries.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, Ž.J. and S.Z.; methodology and investigation, Ž.J., D.Ð. and S.Z.; writing—original draft preparation, review and editing, Ž.J., S.Z., D.Ð. and B.M.; visualization, Ž.J. and B.M.; supervision, S.Z. and D.Ð. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable. **Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Acknowledgments:** The paper presents a part of the research from the Erasmus + Jean Monnet project Agricultural Policy of European Union and its influence on competitiveness of agri-food products of Serbia–AgriCOM (620128-EPP-1-2020-1-RS-EPPJMO-MODULE).

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
