By Oana Lungescu BBC Europe correspondent

The European Commission is to propose a special passport for the residents of Kaliningrad, the Baltic enclave which will remain isolated from mainland Russia after its neighbours - Poland and Lithuania - join the European Union.

If approved by EU governments, the proposal would defuse a row with Moscow that threatened to overshadow a planned EU-Russia summit next November.

EU immigration rules are clear: all Russian citizens need visas to enter EU territory and Poland and Lithuania will also introduce them next year as they prepare to join the EU in 2004.

This, according to Russia, violates the human rights of the residents of Kaliningrad.

"We have to take account of Russian concerns without undermining the relations with our future member states," European Commission President Romano Prodi said.

"Lithuanian sovereignty is in no way being undermined" by the proposals, he added.

But earlier this month, Moscow partially dropped its insistence on visa-free travel for the enclave, and now the European Commission will propose its own compromise - a visa that is not a visa.

It will be called a "facilitated transit document" or Kaliningrad pass, allowing frequent travellers to reach mainland Russia without a conventional visa.

At the moment, few of the enclave's over one million inhabitants hold an international passport.

The EU will pay for the issue of the new documents.

It will also study the possibility of high-speed, non-stop trains through Lithuania.

Back-door immigration

Russia's special envoy for Kaliningrad, Dmitri Rogozin, has already welcomed what he called the political will to find a unique solution to a unique problem.

But many in the EU remain concerned that Kaliningrad, widely seen as a haven for organised crime, could provide illegal immigrants with a back door into Europe.

So there will be renewed pressure on Moscow to conclude an agreement to take back anyone who tries to exploit the enclave's special status.

If European leaders give their political blessing to the compromise next month, a deal could be signed in November, when they meet Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Copenhagen.