What are cookies?

Whenever you visit a website, a cookie is stored on your computer or mobile device.

The first party cookies are those set by the website you’re visiting. Only that website can access them. Additionally, a website might use external services which set their own cookies.

Unlike session cookies, persistent cookies are not deleted automatically when your browser closes, unlike session cookies.

You will be asked to accept or refuse cookies every time you visit the Commission’s websites.

For a certain period of time, the site will remember your preferences (such as your user name, language, etc.).

When you browse around the site during the same visit, you don’t have to re-enter them.

We can also use cookies to establish anonymised statistics about our site visitors browsing experiences.

How do we use cookies?

“First-party cookies” are those set and controlled by the European Commission, not by any third parties.

In order to view some of our pages, you will need to accept cookies from external companies.

Third-party cookies

Our pages display content from external providers, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

In order to view this third-party content, you must first accept their terms and conditions, including their cookie policies.

If you do not view this content, no third-party cookies are installed.

Third-party services are not under the control of the Commission. Their terms of service, purpose and use of cookies may change at any time.

How can you manage cookies?

Your device’s cookies can be removed

Delete all cookies already on your device by clearing your browser’s history. This will remove all cookies from all websites you’ve visited.

You may also lose some saved information (e.g. login details, site preferences).

Managing site-specific cookies

You can control site-specific cookies by checking your browser’s privacy and cookie settings

Blocking cookies

In most modern browsers, you can disable cookies, but you may have to adjust some preferences manually every time you visit a site or page, and some services may not work at all (e.g. profile logging in).