The 2025 Council of Europe Museum Prize has been awarded to Euskararen Etxea (the House of the Basque Language) in Bilbao, Spain. The museum was selected by the Culture Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), meeting on 3 December 2024.
The House of the Basque Language is a small museum, located in a working-class neighborhood outside the centre of Bilbao. The museum showcases the challenge of preserving a language. Visitors can listen, read and sing in the Basque language. The exhibition is presented in four languages - Euskera, Spanish, English and French - which allows visitors to trace the similarities and mutual influences between these European languages.
According to the committee representative for the Museum Prize, Constantinos Efstathiou (Cyprus, SOC): "The Euskararen Etxea is a grassroots initiative with inter-generational activities to promote the transmission and use of the Basque language. It is a 'big-little museum', with only three permanent staff members who manage many activities and a network of partners, including the University of Bilbao, and many civil society associations."
The Council of Europe Museum Prize has been awarded annually since 1977 to a museum judged to have made a significant contribution to the understanding of European cultural heritage, the promotion of respect for human rights and democracy, bridging cultures, overcoming social and political borders, broadening visitors' knowledge and understanding of contemporary societal issues and exploring ideas of democratic citizenship.
The prize forms part of the European Museum of the Year Awards. Recent winners of the prize include the Sybir Memorial Museum in Bialystok, Poland (2024), the Workers Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark (2023) and Nano Nagle Place in Cork, Ireland (2022).
Euskararen Etxea (House of Basque Language)
