diff --git a/swh/scheduler/celery_backend/config.py b/swh/scheduler/celery_backend/config.py
--- a/swh/scheduler/celery_backend/config.py
+++ b/swh/scheduler/celery_backend/config.py
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@
     # celery specific configuration.
     SWH_CONFIG.clear()
     SWH_CONFIG.update(load_named_config(CONFIG_NAME))
-    CONFIG = SWH_CONFIG.get('celery', default={})
+    CONFIG = SWH_CONFIG.get('celery', {})
 
 if not CONFIG:
     # otherwise, back to compat config loading mechanism