Berlin  - The parties which between them won a majority in the German general election were set to open negotiations Monday in Berlin, on the policies and cabinet of their planned coalition government.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she hopes her Christian Democratic bloc and the newcomers, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), can reach an agreement by November 9. The parties are at odds over whether Germany can afford substantial tax cuts.

The nine-member FDP delegation to the talks, set to begin mid-afternoon in Berlin, was to be led by Guido Westerwelle, the party leader who is expected to be offered the job of Germany's foreign minister.

On Saturday, media quoted a study by Merkel's office which warned that the federal budget would already be under strain even before tax cuts, with total forecast revenue in the three years 2011-13 falling 40 billion euros short of planned spending.

That was a warning to both the pro-business FDP and Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavaria-only sister party to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), that their calls for tax cuts were impractical.

Roland Koch, the premier of Hesse and a member of the nine-person CDU delegation at Monday's talks, has also pressed for cuts.

He said on ZDF television he remained convinced that cuts totalling 15 billion euros spread over four years remained "reasonable." He added that growth in the German economy would "partly solve the problem."

Coalition agreements are fundamental documents in Germany, governing four years of legislative plans and allocating cabinet portfolios among the parties, which explains why they take weeks to draw up and often generate extreme tension.

Even where parties have been in relative harmony, the fastest time it has taken to agree a federal coalition was 23 days in 1969 and 1983. Four years ago, it took Merkel 65 days to reach an accord to govern jointly with the Social Democrats, the CDU's old rival.

At the September 27 German general election, the Social Democrats suffered deep losses and are going into opposition.

In 1976, deep differences on pension policy meant it took a record 73 days for the election winners to hammer out a federal pact. (dpa)