BERLIN, Nov. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Parties in chancellor-designated Angela Merkel's grand coalition government are due to approve Monday in their respective party congress an agreement reached between them on Friday for power-sharing in the years to come.

    Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is meeting in Berlin, its Bavarian sister party Christian Social Union (CSU) is convening a congress in Munich, while outgoing Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democratic Party (SPD) meets in the western city of Karlsruhe.

    All the parties are expected to give green light to the deal, which raises consumption tax, curbs budget deficit, eases job protection laws, levies more taxes on top income earners and so on.

    The hard-forged deal was hammered out after the CDU/CSU and SPD,two major political rivals in Germany, had held four weeks of negotiations trying to narrow and shelf differences on almost all fields.

    Economists and business leaders have lashed out at the accord, saying it has failed to cope with key reforms to reactivate the sluggish economy and the raise of consumption tax from the current16 percent to 19 percent in 2007 would further hinder the already stagnated domestic demand.

    Volker Kroneberg, a political scientist at the University of Bonn, predicted in an N-TV interview that the new government would only last two or at most three years before collapsing and sparking new elections.

    But CDU Premier of Lower Saxony state Christian Wulff told NDR radio that the new government would bring about change, though more slowly, saying a "grand coalition is always a bigger compromise than a coalition with a smaller partner."

    Schroeder vehemently support the new government though he wouldnot serve in it.

    The CDU/CSU and SPD had been forced into a grand coalition as both parties failed to achieve majority in the Sept. 18 elections.

    Germany saw such marriage only once in the end of 1960s. It lasted for three years. Enditem