15.12.2009 Official Journal of the European Union L 329/29 COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 1201/2009 of 30 November 2009 implementing Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on population and housing censuses as regards the technical specifications of the topics and of their breakdowns (Text with EEA relevance) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, (2)  The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accor- dance with the opinion of the European Statistical System Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Having regard to Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 on population and housing censuses ('), and in particular Article 5(4) thereof, Whereas: (1) Inorder to ensure that data from the population and hous- ing censuses conducted in the Member States are compa- rable, and to allow reliable Community-wide overviews to be drawn up, the census topics as required by Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 must be defined and broken down in the same way in all Member States. Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 therefore requires the European Commis- sion to adopt technical specifications for these topics and their breakdowns. Committee, HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: Article 1 This Regulation lays down the technical specifications for the cen- sus topics and their breakdowns required to implement Regula- tion (EC) No 763/2008. The technical specifications, to be applied to the data to be sent to the European Commission for the refer- ence year 2011, are listed in the Annex to this Regulation. Atticle 2 This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day fol- lowing its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States. Done at Brussels, 30 November 2009. (1) OJL 218, 13.8.2008, p. 14. For the Commission Joaquin ALMUNIA Member of the Commission