Summary

Concessions fall under the scope of different legal regimes: national administrative and private law, also European Union law. This has caused several contradictions in this area.

The article explores the status quo of concessions in Estonian national law and the links and/or inconsistencies with European Union law. At the centre of the problems lies the specificity of Estonian law to divide concessions into public (administration contracts) and private, without providing clear-cut criteria on the bases of which one can be differentiated from the other in practice. In other words, the article addresses the dichotomy of the laws on concessions and highlights the most important consequences of this. In addition to (interesting) legal-theoretical aspects and the issue of how friendly Estonian legal practices are towards the European Union, the dual nature of concessions under current Estonian law has practical implications. Namely, concessions are important means of transferring public functions to the private sector and thus there is prima facie substantial public interest in them. The article shows that the lack of clarity or playing games of chance with the concluded contracts and the eventual consequences may materially infringe both private and public interests.