diff --git a/babel.cfg b/babel.cfg
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..15cd6cb76
--- /dev/null
+++ b/babel.cfg
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+[python: **.py]
+
diff --git a/designate/locale/designate.pot b/designate/locale/designate.pot
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..b5cf5ae81
--- /dev/null
+++ b/designate/locale/designate.pot
@@ -0,0 +1,240 @@
+# Translations template for designate.
+# Copyright (C) 2014 ORGANIZATION
+# This file is distributed under the same license as the designate project.
+# FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, 2014.
+#
+#, fuzzy
+msgid ""
+msgstr ""
+"Project-Id-Version: designate 2014.2.dev188.g0c97ac1\n"
+"Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: EMAIL@ADDRESS\n"
+"POT-Creation-Date: 2014-07-04 16:25+0200\n"
+"PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n"
+"Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n"
+"Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>\n"
+"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
+"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8\n"
+"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
+"Generated-By: Babel 1.3\n"
+
+#: designate/policy.py:96
+#, python-format
+msgid "Policy check succeeded for rule '%(rule)s' on target %(target)s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/policy.py:100
+#, python-format
+msgid "Policy check failed for rule '%(rule)s' on target %(target)s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/service.py:59
+#, python-format
+msgid "Starting %(topic)s node (version %(version_string)s)"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/service.py:62
+#, python-format
+msgid "Creating RPC server on topic '%s'"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/service.py:120
+msgid "serve() can only be called once"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/api/v2/controllers/rest.py:87
+msgid "Unknown sort direction, must be 'desc' or 'asc'"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/cmd/manage.py:116
+#, python-format
+msgid "Could not read %s. Re-running with sudo"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/cmd/manage.py:120
+msgid "sudo failed, continuing as if nothing happened"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/cmd/manage.py:122
+msgid "Please re-run designate-manage as root."
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/gettextutils.py:271
+msgid "Message objects do not support addition."
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/gettextutils.py:281
+msgid ""
+"Message objects do not support str() because they may contain non-ascii "
+"characters. Please use unicode() or translate() instead."
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/lockutils.py:102
+#, python-format
+msgid "Unable to acquire lock on `%(filename)s` due to %(exception)s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/log.py:327
+#, python-format
+msgid "Deprecated: %s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/log.py:438
+#, python-format
+msgid "Error loading logging config %(log_config)s: %(err_msg)s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/log.py:489
+#, python-format
+msgid "syslog facility must be one of: %s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/log.py:710
+#, python-format
+msgid "Fatal call to deprecated config: %(msg)s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/policy.py:96
+msgid "The JSON file that defines policies."
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/policy.py:99
+msgid "Default rule. Enforced when a requested rule is not found."
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/policy.py:114
+#, python-format
+msgid "Policy doesn't allow %s to be performed."
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/policy.py:208
+#, python-format
+msgid "Rules must be an instance of dict or Rules, got %s instead"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/processutils.py:58
+msgid "Unexpected error while running command."
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/processutils.py:61
+#, python-format
+msgid ""
+"%(description)s\n"
+"Command: %(cmd)s\n"
+"Exit code: %(exit_code)s\n"
+"Stdout: %(stdout)r\n"
+"Stderr: %(stderr)r"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/processutils.py:139
+#, python-format
+msgid "Got unknown keyword args to utils.execute: %r"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/processutils.py:145
+msgid "Command requested root, but did not specify a root helper."
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/processutils.py:241
+msgid "Environment not supported over SSH"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/processutils.py:245
+msgid "process_input not supported over SSH"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/sslutils.py:50
+#, python-format
+msgid "Unable to find cert_file : %s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/sslutils.py:53
+#, python-format
+msgid "Unable to find ca_file : %s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/sslutils.py:56
+#, python-format
+msgid "Unable to find key_file : %s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/sslutils.py:59
+msgid ""
+"When running server in SSL mode, you must specify both a cert_file and "
+"key_file option value in your configuration file"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/sslutils.py:98
+#, python-format
+msgid "Invalid SSL version : %s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/strutils.py:92
+#, python-format
+msgid "Unrecognized value '%(val)s', acceptable values are: %(acceptable)s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/strutils.py:203
+#, python-format
+msgid "Invalid unit system: \"%s\""
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/strutils.py:212
+#, python-format
+msgid "Invalid string format: %s"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/versionutils.py:69
+#, python-format
+msgid ""
+"%(what)s is deprecated as of %(as_of)s in favor of %(in_favor_of)s and "
+"may be removed in %(remove_in)s."
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/common/versionutils.py:73
+#, python-format
+msgid ""
+"%(what)s is deprecated as of %(as_of)s and may be removed in "
+"%(remove_in)s. It will not be superseded."
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/deprecated/exception.py:104
+msgid "Uncaught exception"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/deprecated/wsgi.py:110
+#, python-format
+msgid "Could not bind to %(host)s:%(port)s after trying for 30 seconds"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/deprecated/wsgi.py:372
+msgid "Unsupported Content-Type"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/deprecated/wsgi.py:375
+msgid "Malformed request body"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/deprecated/wsgi.py:660
+msgid "Empty body provided in request"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/deprecated/wsgi.py:666
+msgid "Unrecognized Content-Type provided in request"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/deprecated/wsgi.py:670
+msgid "No Content-Type provided in request"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/deprecated/wsgi.py:676
+msgid "Unable to deserialize body as provided Content-Type"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/deprecated/wsgi.py:726
+msgid "cannot understand JSON"
+msgstr ""
+
+#: designate/openstack/deprecated/wsgi.py:750
+msgid "cannot understand XML"
+msgstr ""
+