Balanced territorial development is one of the key objectives of the rural development expenditure of the CAP. However, territorial aspects do not appear to be sufficiently considered in the policy design nor in allocation of funds. We used data on per capita EAFRD expenditures to evaluate correlations between and among NUTS2 regions. Global as well as local measures of spatial autocorrelation demonstrated a high spatial association as payments tend to be above average throughout the eastern part of the EU. The expenditure is increasingly positively associated with small farming, agricultural employment and investments, while relationship with organic production has weakened.