diff --git a/release/plugin.jelly b/release/plugin.jelly
index d56d10e9..38194357 100644
--- a/release/plugin.jelly
+++ b/release/plugin.jelly
@@ -128,8 +128,12 @@
         <j:set var="required" value="${transformer.transformRequired()}" />
         <j:if test="${required}">
           <ant:echo>Updating POM with version ${version}; tag ${tag}</ant:echo>
+          <!-- Set default encoding if not set. -->
+          <j:if test="${encoding == null}">
+              <j:set var="encoding" value="${maven.docs.outputencoding}" />
+          </j:if>
           ${transformer.transformNodes()}
-          ${transformer.write()}
+          ${transformer.write(encoding)}
         </j:if>
       </define:tag>
     </define:taglib>
@@ -189,8 +193,12 @@
         default="yes"/>
 
       <j:if test="${answer == 'yes'}">
+        <!-- Set default encoding if not set. -->
+        <j:if test="${encoding == null}">
+            <j:set var="encoding" value="${maven.docs.outputencoding}" />
+        </j:if>
         <!-- Write out the pom. -->
-        ${transformer.write()}
+        ${transformer.write(encoding)}
       </j:if>
 
     </j:if>
@@ -203,7 +211,11 @@
       transformations="transformations"/>
 
       ${transformer.transformNodes()}
-      ${transformer.write()}
+      <!-- Set default encoding if not set. -->
+      <j:if test="${encoding == null}">
+          <j:set var="encoding" value="${maven.docs.outputencoding}" />
+      </j:if>
+      ${transformer.write(encoding)}
 
   </goal>
 
@@ -212,7 +224,11 @@
       transformer="transformer"
       transformations="transformations"/>
       ${transformer.transformNodes()}
-      ${transformer.write()}
+      <!-- Set default encoding if not set. -->
+      <j:if test="${encoding == null}">
+          <j:set var="encoding" value="${maven.docs.outputencoding}" />
+      </j:if>
+      ${transformer.write(encoding)}
   </goal>
 
   <!--
diff --git a/release/src/main/org/apache/maven/release/AbstractPomTransformer.java b/release/src/main/org/apache/maven/release/AbstractPomTransformer.java
index e8c398d8..4604c210 100644
--- a/release/src/main/org/apache/maven/release/AbstractPomTransformer.java
+++ b/release/src/main/org/apache/maven/release/AbstractPomTransformer.java
@@ -300,6 +300,16 @@ public abstract class AbstractPomTransformer
      */
     public void write()
         throws Exception
+    {
+        write( null );
+    }
+
+    /**
+     *
+     * @throws Exception
+     */
+    public void write( String encoding )
+        throws Exception
     {
         OutputStream os = null;
 
@@ -320,6 +330,10 @@ public abstract class AbstractPomTransformer
         format.setIndentSize( 2 );
         format.setNewlines( true );
         format.setTrimText( true );
+        if ( encoding != null )
+        {
+            format.setEncoding( encoding );
+        }
 
         XMLWriter writer = new XMLWriter( format );
         writer.setOutputStream( os );
diff --git a/release/xdocs/changes.xml b/release/xdocs/changes.xml
index c603038e..4c8996ab 100644
--- a/release/xdocs/changes.xml
+++ b/release/xdocs/changes.xml
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
   </properties>
   <body>
     <release version="1.5-SNAPSHOT" date="In SVN">
+      <action dev="ltheussl" type="fix" issue="MPRELEASE-12" due-to="Dennis Lundberg">The encoding of the project.xml file is not preserved after doing <code>release:transform</code>.</action>
       <action dev="brett" type="fix" issue="MPRELEASE-11">handle non-jar dependencies</action>
       <action dev="aheritier" type="update" issue="MAVEN-1712">Update dependencies to match ones in maven 1.1 core and to unify them between plugins. The following dependencies are updated : 
         <ul>
