What causes imported Maven project in Eclipse to use Java 1.5 instead of Java 1.6 by default and how can I ensure it doesn't?

Question

I imported a Maven project and it used Java 1.5 even though I have 1.6 configured as my Eclipse default Preferences->Java->Installed JREs.

When I

Answer 1

I wanted to add something to the answer already provided. maven-compiler-plugin by default will compile your project using Java 1.5 which is where m2e get's its information.

That's why you have to explicitly declare the maven-compiler-plugin in your project with something other then 1.5. Your effective pom.xml will implicitly use the default set in the maven-compiler-plugin pom.xml.