diff --git a/perl/exit_strategy.pl b/perl/exit_strategy.pl
index 49c4082893d220b1f8b22ac48d9416644af1e05a..d2cc3faae74d184bddbd4cf7c008d8773cce8e04 100644
--- a/perl/exit_strategy.pl
+++ b/perl/exit_strategy.pl
@@ -418,10 +418,11 @@ sub check_if_db_conform ($string, $filename) {
   my $parser;
   sub get_parser ( $recovery_flag ){
     if (defined $parser) { return $parser;}
-    $parser = XML::LibXML->new(        recover   => $recovery_flag,
-        compact   => 1,
-        no_network    => 1,
-        recover   => $recovery_flag,
+    $parser = XML::LibXML->new(recover => $recovery_flag,
+        compact                        => 1,
+        no_network                     => 1,
+        recover                        => $recovery_flag,
+        no_blanks                      => 1,
     );
     return $parser;
   }