Last Updated : 1st January 2021
What are cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that a website stores on your
computer or mobile device when you visit the site.
First party cookies are cookies set by the website you’re visiting.
Only that website can read them. In addition, a website might
potentially use external services, which also set their own cookies,
known as third-party cookies.
Persistent cookies are cookies saved on your computer and that are
not deleted automatically when you quit your browser, unlike a
session cookie, which is deleted when you quit your browser.
Every time you visit the Commission’s websites, you will be
prompted to accept or refuse cookies.
The purpose is to enable the site to remember your preferences
(such as user name, language, etc.) for a certain period of time.
That way, you don’t have to re-enter them when browsing around the
site during the same visit.
Cookies can also be used to establish anonymised statistics about
the browsing experience on our sites.
How do we use cookies?
European Commission websites mostly use “first-party cookies”.
These are cookies set and controlled by the Commission, not by any
external organisation.However, to view some of our pages, you will
have to accept cookies from external organisations.
The 3 types of first-party cookie we use are to:
store visitor preferences
make our websites operational
gather
analytics data (about user behaviour)
Visitor preferences
These are set by us and only we can read them. They remember:
if
you have agreed to (or refused) this site’s cookie policy
if
you have already replied to our survey pop-up (about how helpful the
site content was) – so you won't be asked again
Operational cookies
There are some cookies that we have to include in order for certain
web pages to function. For this reason, they do not require your
consent. In particular:
authentication cookies
technical
cookies required by certain IT systems
Analytics cookies
We use these purely for internal research on how we can improve the
service we provide for all our users.The cookies simply assess how
you interact with our website – as an anonymous user (the data
gathered does not identify you personally).Also, this data is not
shared with any third parties or used for any other purpose. The
anonymised statistics could be shared with contractors working on
communication projects under contractual agreement with the
Commission.
Third-party cookies
Some of our pages display content from external providers, e.g.
YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.To view this third-party content, you
first have to accept their specific terms and conditions. This
includes their cookie policies, which we have no control over.But if
you do not view this content, no third-party cookies are installed
on your device.These third-party services are outside of the control
of the Commission. Providers may, at any time, change their terms of
service, purpose and use of cookies, etc.
How can you manage cookies?
Removing cookies from your deviceYou can delete all cookies that
are already on your device by clearing the browsing history of your
browser. This will remove all cookies from all websites you have
visited.Be aware though that you may also lose some saved
information (e.g. saved login details, site preferences).Managing
site-specific cookiesFor more detailed control over site-specific
cookies, check the privacy and cookie settings in your preferred
browserBlocking cookiesYou can set most modern browsers to prevent
any cookies being placed on your device, but you may then have to
manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site/page.
And some services and functionalities may not work properly at all
(e.g. profile logging-in).