This introductory chapter explains the need for adopting an overarching perspective to the allocation of limited rights. Although the applicable legal frameworks may suggest otherwise, the awards of public contracts, authorisations, subsidies or government sales share common characteristics in the event that the number of rights available for grant is limited. These similarities are nowhere as manifest as with regard to the question of whether governments should use some form of competitive tendering when allocating these ‘limited rights’. Although the public interests involved in the allocation of these limited rights differ in substance and respective weight, competitive procedures should aim to optimise the pursuit of the different public interests involved. Using Mark Moore’s theory of creating and recognising public value, this chapter provides a general reflection upon the distinct role of the legal framework for allocating governments in solving this optimisation problem.

This chapter concerns the pursuit of public interests involved in the award of financial grants by public authorities to natural individuals and organisations. The core aim of subsidising is to encourage certain activities being performed while public money is spent in an efficient and lawful way. In order to assess the use of competitive tendering when allocating financial grants, it is necessary to distinguish between grants awarded by EU institutions, in shared management (EU and domestic authorities together) and by domestic authorities. It turns out that the need to use a competitive procedure has been articulated more clearly at the EU level, whereas domestic allocations of financial grants are still subject to non-competitive allocation procedures (first come, first served, lottery) or even to direct award, lacking any call for competition, without proper justification.