Germany’s progress in increasing the share of renewable energy in the country over the past three years has been a success that could be undermined in upcoming elections, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck argued on Tuesday.

Habeck, speaking at a German solar industry gathering in Berlin, warned against jeopardizing the energy transition with divisive debate during the campaign: “This must not be allowed to come to an end now.”

Conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz, for instance, recently described wind turbines as a transitional technology during an appearance on public broadcaster ZDF and said that he believed they could be dismantled in the long term “because they are ugly and because they don’t fit into the landscape.”

The current governing coalition collapsed after Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired former finance minister Christian Lindner, and now lacks a majority in parliament.

Early elections are expected to be held in February. Merz’s conservative bloc has a comfortable lead in opinion polls.