Switzerland

The Basque community of Switzerland was never large and never left an organised colony in the American manner, but it came to have a euskal etxea with no premises, spread across Zurich, Geneva and Bern, with documented activity between 2005 and 2007. There is no record that it was ever officially recognised, and today no Basque body in the country appears in the register.

That community was formed in two layers. The first was that of economic emigration: in 2005 the euskal etxea itself described its members as “young professionals, students and children of Basques who emigrated in search of work in the 70s”.² The second is that of recent mobility, of those who come to study, like the fifteen students of Mondragon Unibertsitatea who lived in Lausanne and took part in its activities at the time.²

The association already existed before those dates. The report of the Directorate for Relations with Basque Communities places the Euskal Etxea-Baskischer Kulturverein of Zurich in 1999, “with activities in other places such as Geneva and Saignelégier in the Canton of Jura”, among the centres set up in those years.⁵ Its best-documented period runs from 2005 to 2007, with monthly gatherings, Basque classes and festivals (the euskal etxea of Switzerland).²³ Today no Basque body in Switzerland appears in the register the project uses, and it has not been possible to confirm whether the association still exists.¹⁴