A major Euro 1 billion (£840 million) joint initiative designed to commercialise fuel cells and hydrogen technology in Europe has been launched.

The European Commission has already released its first call for research proposals, with Euro 28.1 million available.

EU research commissioner Janez Potočnik said: “This brings together the most significant players to put Europe ahead of the game in new energy technologies.”

However, there was criticism from the European fuel cell and hydrogen association FuelCellEurope.

Its president Marcus Nurdin said the EU would actually only provide Euro 500 million (£420m), with the rest being levered in and “Euro 7.4 billion (£6.21bn) of public and private resources” are actually needed for this job.