diff --git a/src/spi/__init__.py b/src/spi/__init__.py
index 6274fc9..6c08ad8 100644
--- a/src/spi/__init__.py
+++ b/src/spi/__init__.py
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
 
 MAX_SHORTCRID = 16777215
 DEFAULT_LANGUAGE = "en"
+DEFAULT_ENCODING = "utf-8"
 
 class Text:
     """Abstract class for textual information"""