* EU's Solana hopes for unfreezing of agreement * Draft report shows U.N. prosecutor sees progress * Dutch to review policy based on final report By David Brunnstrom BRUSSELS, Nov 30 (Reuters) - European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana expressed hope on Monday that EU states would next week unfreeze an agreement needed for Serbia to make progress towards membership of the 27-nation bloc. In a boost to Belgrade, EU ministers agreed on Monday that the European Union will allow visa-free travel inside the 27-country bloc for Serbia as well as Macedonia and Montenegro from Dec. 19, but they kept restrictions on Albania and Bosnia. EU foreign ministers meeting next Monday on Tuesday will discuss whether to unblock the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), a first step towards joining the EU. It was signed last year but blocked by the Netherlands over Serbia's failure to track down war crimes suspects from the conflicts fought in the 1990s in former Yugoslavia. "We hope very much that the Stabilisation and Association Agreement will be fully implemented in the next general affairs council (of EU foreign ministers)," Solana told reporters. He said he hoped the EU would then be able to decide whether to make Serbia a candidate to join the EU -- a status that would allow the start of what is usually a long negotiating process. "We still have time during the month of December to take the decision to begin to think about membership of Serbia in the European Union, starting with candidacy," Solana said. "We still have time to do it and I hope it will be done. If not it will be done at the beginning of the year," Solana added. After talks with Solana, Serbian Prime Minister Boris Tadic expressed hope that the bloc would soon at least unfreeze an interim agreement covering trade and other economic cooperation that would go into place pending ratification of the SAA. The EU has said Serbia must show full cooperation with efforts to arrest suspected war criminals as a condition for Serbia to make progress towards EU membership. A draft of a report U.N. war crimes prosecutor Serge Brammertz is due to deliver on Wednesday said Serbia's cooperation with the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague had improved, but Belgrade must keep up efforts to arrest the remaining fugitives. DUTCH TO BASE STANCE ON FINAL REPORT A Dutch official said the Netherlands would review its policy on the basis of Brammertz's final report. He said there had been signs of progress, but the best demonstration of full cooperation would be the handover of leading war crimes suspect General Ratko Mladic to The Hague. "It's continued pressure by the international community and specifically the EU that is absolutely necessary to get results," the Dutch official added. Brammertz said he was "satisfied with the current level of efforts undertaken by Serbia's authorities in their cooperation", but he made no reference to the "full" cooperation that has been demanded by the EU. Serbian agencies had continued operations aimed at tracking down the fugitives and their support networks, Brammertz said. "It is hoped that this improved framework and the ongoing operational activities will result in the apprehension of the fugitives in the near future." The report's tone echoed the tribunal's long-standing policy of combining carrot with stick in dealing with Serbia, praising progress but demanding it recognise its role in wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s as Yugoslavia collapsed. Serbian authorities, wary of provoking a backlash among nationalists, have only recently and reluctantly hinted at accepting Belgrade's responsibility for atrocities against non-Serbs during the wars. Belgrade hoped the arrest last year of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic would unblock the road to EU membership but the bloc said Mladic, now the tribunal's most wanted man, must also be arrested. Mladic, who hid in Belgrade until 2006, has been indicted for genocide over the killing of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in Bosnia and over the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, in which 10,000 people were killed. (Additional reporting by Justyna Pawlak and Ilona Wissenbach and Ivana Sekularac in Belgrade, editing by Mark Trevelyan) ((david.brunnstrom@reuters.com ; +32 2 287 6839; Reuters Messaging: david.brunnstrom.reuters.com@reuters.net ))
An employee of the Albanian Mine Action Executive project trains in the north eastern of Kukes district, some 150 km (93 miles) from Tirana October 7, 2009. Hundreds of Albanians were ...
