Cookies and biscuits are different beasties over here. Cookies, like your recipe, are larger and chewier than biscuits and are thought of as American. I don't know about biscuits in the rest of Europe, but the native ones are definitely hard and crispy and usually made with butter. They come in as vast a range as (I'm sure!) American cookies. Spiced biscuits, like ginger ones, tend to use more brown sugar. These are traditional Christmas biscuits (at least in our house). Being all butter is usually used as a selling point for biscuits you buy too, Scottish shortbread being a good example of that.

We have Flora White in our fridge, I've just never made the connection with suet=shortening because I think of suet as savoury too- used in dumplings and steak and kidney pudding etc.