You must enable the Translation ... to install COOKiES. Why?

Sadly yes. COOKiES 1.x implementation / use of config translations is... well... let's say not the Drupal way.

We were planning a rewrite with COOKiES 2.x but that's a bunch of work and won't happen without sponsors, I think. We already put a lot of effort into COOKiES as a small team of 3 developers... paid by our spare time.

Sorry, but feel free to help.

I didn't want to seem mean.
Thank you for all your work.
But unfortunately I have a business site here that is run very conservatively.

All good @sachbearbeiter you're totally right. It's just a heavy refactoring required and the world turns fast...