diff --git a/release/src/main/org/apache/maven/release/AbstractPomTransformer.java b/release/src/main/org/apache/maven/release/AbstractPomTransformer.java
index 4604c210..d3427715 100644
--- a/release/src/main/org/apache/maven/release/AbstractPomTransformer.java
+++ b/release/src/main/org/apache/maven/release/AbstractPomTransformer.java
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ import java.util.Map;
 
 import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;
 import org.dom4j.Document;
+import org.dom4j.Namespace;
 import org.dom4j.Node;
 import org.dom4j.io.OutputFormat;
 import org.dom4j.io.SAXReader;
@@ -335,7 +336,15 @@ public abstract class AbstractPomTransformer
             format.setEncoding( encoding );
         }
 
-        XMLWriter writer = new XMLWriter( format );
+        XMLWriter writer = new XMLWriter( format )
+        {
+            protected boolean isNamespaceDeclaration( Namespace ns )
+            {
+                // this will filter out empty namespaces, only the correct POM ns is allowed
+                return "http://maven.apache.org/POM/3.0.0".equals( ns.getURI() );
+            }
+        };
+
         writer.setOutputStream( os );
         writer.write( getDocument() );
         writer.flush();