Britain will "willingly" pay to keep EU science ties, PM says

LONDON, May 22 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May said that Britain is willing to pay the European Union (EU) to avoid being frozen out of EU-backed science programmes after Brexit, a major British daily newspaper reported Tuesday.

Britain will continue to hand over money to Brussels after Brexit to stay involved in EU scientific research and development programmes under plans unveiled by the prime minister when she was speaking at the Jodrell Bank Observatory near Macclesfield in Cheshire, England, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported.

May said that she wanted Britain to "fully associate ourselves" with European R&D programmes including the successor to Horizon 2020 and the research and training arm of Euratom, Europe's nuclear agency.

The Horizon programme was established by the EU to encourage scientific collaboration and has a budget of 79 billion euros (about 93.06 billion U.S. dollars) with the programme set to run until 2020.

The UK will "willingly make" financial payments in order to continue its participation in European science projects, she said.

The prime minister's offer to the EU to be involved in any successor programme will help assuage concerns among the UK's scientific community that Britain's withdrawal from the bloc could stymie innovation and threaten funding.

However, she insisted Britain would have to "maintain a suitable level of influence" over the initiatives as she said she wanted to discuss her plans with the European Commission during Brexit negotiations.

Meanwhile, May moved to alleviate concerns of Brexiters over her customs proposals as a British cabinet row continued over whether to move forward with her preferred customs partnership option or the alternative maximum facilitation model. Enditem