Cookies

A cookie is a small piece of data that a website stores on the visitor’s computer or mobile device.

We use cookies to enable the technical functioning of this website. In addition, if you consent to it, we use cookies to collect your browsing experience on our website. This enables us to collect anonymous statistics to help us improve this website and our services.

There are different types of cookies:

• First-party cookies are set by the website you are visiting and only that website can read them. A website might use first-party cookies from an external service to analyse how people use their site, such as Europa Analytics (see below).
• Third-party cookies are set and stored by a different website in a manner that is outside the control of the site you are visiting.
• Session cookies are saved in your web browser temporarily, to enable a website to track your navigation, so that you are not treated as a new user every time you go from page to page. These cookies are deleted automatically when you close your browser.
• Persistent cookies are saved on your computer for longer and are not deleted automatically when you close your browser.

For more information on different types of cookies, see: European Commission: cookies.

Europa Analytics is the service that monitors your browsing experience on this website. We use it to evaluate the website's effectiveness and efficiency.

Europa Analytics is configured for use by the websites of European Union institutions. It uses first-party cookies to collect data.

The European Commission retains full control of the data collected through these first-party cookies, by storing these data on its own servers.

Europa Analytics is based on an open-source analytics platform controlled fully by the European Commission. This platform enables the protection of personal data of users thanks to features such as the de-identification of IP addresses.

Europa Analytics registers your browsing experience using cookies, if they are enabled when you open a page on this website.

When you visit this website, a banner appears that gives you the option to accept either all cookies or only essential cookies.

• If you accept only essential cookies, you stop Europa Analytics.
• If you accept all cookies, you enable Europa Analytics.
• If you do not make a selection and continue to browse the website, all cookies are enabled by default.

Choosing to accept only essential cookies does not affect your navigation experience on this website.

You can decide to withdraw or give your consent to enabling all cookies at any time.

Europa Analytics uses cookies to track the following information about visitors:

• IP address (de-identified)
• Location (country, region, city, approximate latitude and longitude)
• Date and time of the visit
• Title of the page being viewed
• URL of the page being viewed
• URL of the page that was viewed prior to the current page
• Screen resolution of the user's device
• Time in the visitor's local time zone
• Files clicked and downloaded
• Links to another website that were clicked
• Time for webpages to be generated by the server and then downloaded by the visitor
• Main language of the visitor's web browser being used
• Browser version
• Browser plug-ins
• Operating system version
• Device identifier
• Language of the visited page
• Campaign information
• Site search information
• Events

We use this information to prepare aggregated, anonymous reports on visitor activity. To improve the accuracy of these reports, a first-party cookie stores the following information from this website, which Europa Analytics collects:

• Random unique visitor ID
• Time of the first visit for the specific visitor
• Time of the previous visit for the specific visitor
• Number of visits for the specific visitor

Europa Analytics generates a random ID persistent cookie that allows it to identify when a user returns to the site. This cookie has an expiration date of 13 months, after which it is automatically removed from the user's device. It also uses some session cookies.

'Do not track' is a browser function that prevents websites from tracking visitors. If you have enabled the 'do not track' option in your browser, Europa Analytics will not process your browsing experience on this website.

A number of browsers have the 'do not track' option:

• Chrome
• Edge
• Firefox
• Internet Explorer
• Opera
• Safari