diff --git a/Lib/distutils/command/install_egg_info.py b/Lib/distutils/command/install_egg_info.py
--- a/Lib/distutils/command/install_egg_info.py
+++ b/Lib/distutils/command/install_egg_info.py
@@ -40,9 +40,8 @@ class install_egg_info(Command):
                          "Creating "+self.install_dir)
         log.info("Writing %s", target)
         if not self.dry_run:
-            f = open(target, 'w')
-            self.distribution.metadata.write_pkg_file(f)
-            f.close()
+            with open(target, 'w', encoding='UTF-8') as f:
+                self.distribution.metadata.write_pkg_file(f)

     def get_outputs(self):
         return self.outputs
diff --git a/Lib/distutils/dist.py b/Lib/distutils/dist.py
--- a/Lib/distutils/dist.py
+++ b/Lib/distutils/dist.py
@@ -1012,7 +1012,8 @@ class DistributionMetadata:
     def write_pkg_info(self, base_dir):
         """Write the PKG-INFO file into the release tree.
         """
-        pkg_info = open(os.path.join(base_dir, 'PKG-INFO'), 'w')
+        pkg_info = open(os.path.join(base_dir, 'PKG-INFO'), 'w',
+                        encoding='UTF-8')
         try:
             self.write_pkg_file(pkg_info)
         finally: