Finding common ground A pragmatic budgetary instrument for the euro area Bertelsmann Stiftung Policy Paper 8 February 2019

We outline a pragmatic proposal for a budgetary instrument for the euro area in line with the decision of the December 2018 Euro Summit. It is based on a very simple principle: any new instrument should make the euro area function better as a currency union. This is the only way to justify a euro area instrument in the first place. This principle has two implications. First, duplication of existing tools needs to be avoided at all cost. In the current situation, we see a looming risk of layering a new instrument onto existing programmes such as EU structural funds, to which the new instrument would add no real value. Second, the two objectives set out in the Euro Summit decision – competitiveness and convergence – ought to be operationalized strictly in terms of their contribution to a better functioning of the euro area as a currency union

Inhibition of adenosine triphosphatase and respiration of rat-liver mitochondria by dinitrophenols

1. The stimulating and inhibitory effect of nitrophenols on various mitochondrial systems are compared. Both respiration and ATPase are stimulated by low dinitrophenol concentrations followed by inhibition at higher concentrations. The concentration of dinitrophenol inducing maximal activity (copt) differs for ATPase, pyruvate oxidation, β-hydroxybutyrate oxidation and succinate oxidation. 2. It is concluded that dinitrophenols have a specific inhibitory action on the uncoupled respiration and on the ATPase of intact rat-liver mitochondria. This inhibition can be located between NADH and flavoprotein and between flavoprotein and cytochrome c. Although the third phosphorylating step is as easily uncoupled as the other two steps, no inhibition of this step by uncoupling agents occurs. 3. The inhibition by alkyldinitrophenols can be reversed by lowering the partition coefficient of the inhibitor between the mitochondrial lipid and the medium. 4. From the fact that a difference exists between copt for ATPaase and for NAD-linked respiration it can be concluded that dinitrophenols act by hydrolysing a high-energy intermediate rather than by allowing respiration to proceed without the formation of a high-energy intermediate