Google has offered €150m (£108m) in funding to help news publishers across Europe “develop more sustainable models for news”.

The Digital News Initiative move comes weeks after the internet search engine company was accused of abusing its near monopoly position in Europe and threatened with a fine of up to €6.2bn by the European Union.

According to analysis by the website Quartz, Google made revenue of €17bn in Europe in 2013 and paid €28m tax in Ireland. It is estimated to command more than 90 per cent of the search engine market across Europe.