摘要:The paper gives a critical analysis of the opportunities for the future agri-environmental policy, offered by the policy instruments provided by the European union and their use in the national strategic plan for rural development 2007- 2013 (NSP). The aim of the paper is twofold: a) to analyse the strategic approach in the rural development programming process, on the basis of both the process elements and the NSP contents; b) to highlight the challenges for agri-environment of NSP implementation. The analysis is driven by two crucial elements for the strategic approach: 1) the relationship between knowledge system and programming system; and 2) the implementation modalities which improve the effectiveness of the strategy.