This book is the result of a Europe-wide exploration of building blocks for a consistent and general legal theory on the allocation of limited rights by administrative authorities. The idea of an international book project on this theme was launched at an inspiring international conference, organised by researchers from the Departments of Constitutional and Administrative law of Leiden University and VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The project has been realised with the help of many researchers from various EU Member States. The contributions in this book deal with the subject from a general perspective, as well as from an EU law perspective and a comparative law perspective. These contributions have been enriched by the information provided by national reports on the allocation of gambling licences, radio frequencies and CO2 emission permits in seven EU Member States: France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain. Together, all these contributions have resulted in a valuable and interesting collection of legal scholarship, which sheds light on various complex issues concerning the allocation of limited rights by administrative authorities. We sincerely hope that, based on these building blocks, further research in this field can be carried out. We wish to thank all the authors for their efforts and contributions to this book project.

Paul Adriaanse, Frank van Ommeren, Willemien den Ouden and Johan Wolswinkel Leiden/Amsterdam, November 2015