Argentina

What holds the Basque community of Argentina together today is its centres, the federation that brings a good many of them together, a network of institutions in Buenos Aires and a habit that goes back to the early years of the FEVA: teaching Basque. The figures for all of this have to be read with their date, because they are not the same from one year to the next.

In the year 2000, according to the official magazine Euskal Etxeak, there were 85 euskal etxeak at work in Argentina with some 15,000 members, and 54 of them took part in the FEVA, with 10,700 members and 1,750 young people.⁸ Seven years later, the same magazine already gave 95 euskal etxeak belonging to the FEVA, with 18,000 members, and reported that 25 new centres had been set up in the previous eight years; Argentina then had 47% of the Basque centres in the world.²⁸ Today the Basque Government recognises 78 entities in Argentina.⁸ Carlos Miguelena has chaired the FEVA since 2024.⁸

Buenos Aires is the seat of the Delegation of Euskadi in Argentina-Mercosur.¹⁵ The city also brings together a varied network of Basque institutions: alongside the Laurak Bat there are the Centro Vasco Francés, with its hundred-year-old building, the Casa de la Cultura Vasca (Eusko Kultur Etxea) and the euskaltegi Euskaltzaleak, where Basque is taught. When the Director for the Basque Community Abroad visited the country in 2025, representatives of nine Basque institutions in Buenos Aires alone met with her.¹⁶

The teaching of Basque goes back a long way. In its very first years, the Board of Directors of the FEVA suggested to its member centres that they give classes in the Basque language, not only to learn it, but to draw closer to their origin, culture and history. Those that committed themselves were Laurak Bat, Acción Vasca de la Argentina, Zazpirak Bat of Rosario, Denak Bat of Mar del Plata, Euzko Etxea of La Plata, Euzko Etxea of Necochea, Gure Etxea of Tandil, the Unión Vasca de Socorros Mutuos de Bahía Blanca and the Euskal Echea school in Llavallol.¹⁷