(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission gave the greenlight on Thursday to Denmark's bailout of Roskilde Bank, judging the rescue of the country's eighth biggest bank did not break EU state aid rules.

After Roskilde was hit by the global credit crunch and crisis in the Danish housing market, the Danish central bank gave Roskilde an emergency credit line earlier this month, guaranteed by private investors and the state.

The bailout was rare in Denmark, where the central bank has only rescued a handful of banks in crisis since World War II.

Roskilde needed a bailout to stay afloat after it said it would have significantly bigger writedowns than expected on its real estate loans and had put itself up for sale. The amount of writedowns was not disclosed.

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