Germany’s outgoing government on Wednesday extended by six months the border checks it imposed on all its frontiers last fall as it attempts to cut the number of migrants arriving in the country, an issue that has become a top issue in the campaign for the February 23 election.

 Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his government notified the European Union’s executive commission of the extension to September 15. “With the border controls, we are pushing irregular migration down successfully. The figures prove this,” he said.Germany turned back 47,000 people back at its borders, seeing one-third fewer asylum requests year-on-year and arresting 1,900 smugglers.

The country was already controlling its borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland before it extended the checks last September to its remaining borders, with France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark.

The EU has a visa-free travel area known as Schengen that allows citizens of most member states to travel easily across borders for work and pleasure. Switzerland also belongs to Schengen although it is not an EU member.

According to the EU, member states are allowed to temporarily reintroduce border controls in cases of a serious threat, like internal security.

But it also says border controls should be applied as a last resort in exceptional situations, and must be limited in time. German opposition leader Friedrich Merz, the front-runner in the election, wants to go further than the current government.

He has said that if he becomes chancellor, he would order the Interior Ministry on his first day in office to control all of Germany’s borders permanently and “turn back all attempts at illegal entry without exception.” He argued that EU rules are “recognizably dysfunctional” and Germany must exert a right to the primacy of national law.

Scholz argues that Merz’s proposal is incompatible with German and EU law and would lead to the EU’s most populous member undermining the bloc.