PARIS — Britain will stay in the European Space Agency on leaving the EU, but had to renegotiate terms to keep taking part in projects, the agency says.The ESA is autonomous from the European Union and should not be directly affected by the "Brexit", agency policy office head Jean Bruston said in Paris.Twenty EU countries including the UK are ESA members, and it gets a quarter of its budget from the 28-member bloc. The other two members are non-EU countries Norway and Switzerland.READ THIS: EU should use Brexit to re-examine structuresApart from its ESA participation, Britain is party to EU-driven space programmes, including the Copernicus satellite system to monitor environmental damage and boost disaster relief, and Horizon 2020, which seeks to boost scientific research and innovation."As soon as it (Britain) is leaving the EU it is not participating in these programmes any longer," Bruston said on Wednesday.UK-based companies hold ESA contracts worth tens of millions of euros fr...

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