Cookie Policy
What are cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that websites store on your computer or mobile device when you visit them.
First-party cookies or “own cookies” are cookies created by the website you are visiting. Only that website can read them. A website may also use external services, which also create their own cookies, called third-party cookies.
Persistent cookies are cookies that are stored on your computer and are not automatically deleted when you close your browser, unlike session cookies, which are deleted when you close your browser.
Each time you visit a Commission website, you are asked to accept or refuse cookies.
The aim is to allow the website concerned to remember your preferences (user name, language, etc.) for a certain period of time.
This means that you do not have to indicate them several times during the same visit to that website.
Cookies can also be used to compile anonymous statistics about the browsing experience on our sites.
How do we use cookies?
The European Commission websites mainly use “first party cookies”. These are cookies created and controlled by the Commission, not by an external organisation.
However, to view some of our pages, you must accept cookies from external organisations.
The 3 types of first party cookies we use are used to:
record visitor preferences;
ensure that our websites work properly;
collect analytical data (on user behaviour).
Visitor preferences
We create visitor preference cookies and are the only ones who can read them. They allow your browser to remember:
whether you have accepted (or refused) the site’s cookie policy;
whether you have already completed the survey (which appears in a pop-up window) on the usefulness of the site’s content – so that you do not have to ask again.
