Brussels, 27/02/2007 (Agence Europe) - Last Friday, the European Commission adopted a draft regulation on population and housing censuses. The proposal clarifies the responsibilities and roles in the decennial provision of comprehensive data on the population and on housing in EU member states, as well as common requirements concerning quality and transparency of results and methods. It leaves member states free to produce the necessary data in the way they think is best for their respective countries. This includes the choice of the source from which member states wish to derive the data. At the same time, the proposal guarantees the quality of the data, notably comparability at the European level. In essence, the approach is not input oriented, but output oriented. The draft text can be found at: http: //eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2007/com2007_0069en01.pdf (ol)