Denmark’s too-big-to-fail bank proposal hits lawmaker opposition

Denmark’s opposition bloc said a proposal to raise capital buffers for the biggest banks is too draconian as lawmakers fail to find common ground on how to treat the lenders. The Liberal and Conservative parties are signalling they’ll probably vote against a proposal laying out standards for Denmark’s systemically important financial institutions, their parliamentary business committee spokesmen said.  The government-appointed Sifi committee in March identified Denmark’s six biggest banks as systemically important to the $300 billion economy and argued the lenders should hold as much as 5 percent extra capital. The move is the latest in a string of steps that has placed Denmark at the forefront of regulatory reform in the European Union. The nation in 2011 forced losses on senior creditors in the EU’s first bail-in. Legislators in the 27-nation bloc have yet to agree on too-big-to-fail rules for banks.

“We don’t need to be first movers on this in Europe,” Kim Andersen, the parliamentary business committee spokesman for the Liberal Party, said in an interview. “We would like the capital requirements to be lower.”  Andersen’s counterparts at the Conservative Party, Brian Mikkelsen, and the Danish People’s Party, Hans Kristian Skibby, agree, the two said in interviews. The Social Democrat-led government of Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt needs the support of the Liberals and Conservatives to pass the Sifi proposal because the two parties are in an accord group on bank regulation in which unanimity is required.

“We should move at a snail’s pace on this to avoid implementing too much regulation and wait for the rest of Europe,” Skibby said. Denmark’s economy contracted 0.7 percent in the final three months of last year and may have shrunk in the first quarter, according to estimates by Svenska Handelsbanken AB and Danske Bank A/S. (DANSKE) Denmark is the Scandinavian nation hardest hit by the debt turmoil raging in the euro zone as it struggles to emerge from a burst housing bubble and regional banking crisis. “This will have consequences,” Andersen said. “If we want to get an economic upturn going we shouldn’t limit the access to credit too much.” Business groups including the Confederation of Danish Industry have argued that additional capital requirements risk choking capital and hurting their members. Small and medium-sized businesses employ about two-thirds of the nation’s workforce.

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Denmark warns against rice for children

Denmark's Veterinary and Food Administration said on Wednesday that parents should stop giving their children rice cakes and rice milk, saying the products contained unacceptable levels of inorganic arsenic. The food safety authority said inorganic arsenic, a known human carcinogen, is naturally found in rice. "People who eat foods with inorganic arsenic every day have an increased risk of cancer," the authority said in a news release published on its website.

It added that parents should be "particularly careful" in relation to children due to their high intake relative to their body weight. "Avoid rice drink and rice milk for children," the authority said in recommendations on rice products, adding that children should not be served rice-based hot cereals every day. It added that it had already begun new tests of other rice products to determine contents of inorganic arsenic, including products such as rice-based breakfast products and rice noodles. Analyses of these products were expected to be made public in July, the authority said.

In November 2012, US-based Consumerreports.org tested 200 different rice products finding both organic arsenic and "significant levels" of inorganic arsenic in almost all products. The organisation called for US federal standards to be introduced for arsenic in foodstuffs.

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Danish teenager makes rare Viking find

Danish museum officials say that an archaeological dig last year has revealed 365 items from the Viking era, including 60 rare coins. Danish National Museum spokesman Jens Christian Moesgaard says the coins have a distinctive cross motif attributed to Norse King Harald Bluetooth, who is believed to have brought Christianity to Norway and Denmark.

Sixteen-year-old Michael Stokbro Larsen found the coins and other items with a metal detector in a field in northern Denmark. Stokbro Larsen, who often explores with his detector, said friends find him "a bit nerdy."

Moesgaard said Thursday that it was the first time since 1939 that so many Viking-era coins have been found, calling them "another important piece in the puzzle" of history.