diff --git a/rabbitmq-server.changes b/rabbitmq-server.changes
index c7bf4ea..f13b74c 100644
--- a/rabbitmq-server.changes
+++ b/rabbitmq-server.changes
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+-------------------------------------------------------------------
+Fri Apr 24 12:01:33 UTC 2020 - Dirk Mueller <dmueller@suse.com>
+
+- use python 3.x for building, allows dropping python 2.x
+
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
 Thu Mar 12 08:35:53 UTC 2020 - Gabriele Santomaggio <gsantomaggio@suse.de>
 
diff --git a/rabbitmq-server.spec b/rabbitmq-server.spec
index 0c37705..0fca4cb 100644
--- a/rabbitmq-server.spec
+++ b/rabbitmq-server.spec
@@ -59,9 +59,7 @@ BuildRequires:  erlang >= 21.3
 BuildRequires:  erlang-src
 BuildRequires:  fdupes
 BuildRequires:  libxslt
-# require python json module
-BuildRequires:  python >= 2.6
-BuildRequires:  python-xml
+BuildRequires:  python3
 BuildRequires:  rsync
 BuildRequires:  unzip
 BuildRequires:  xmlto
@@ -121,11 +119,13 @@ cp %{SOURCE8} .
 %build
 # Make elixir happy with Unicode
 export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
+export PYTHON=%{_bindir}/python3
 make all %{_make_args} %{?_smp_mflags}
 
 %install
 # Make elixir happy with Unicode
 export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
+export PYTHON=%{_bindir}/python3
 make install %{_make_args}
 
 mkdir -p %{buildroot}%{_sbindir}