Editing History of Norway (section)

=== The last decades of the Union ===
[[File:Pihl holtaalen 1877.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Røros Line]] through [[Holtålen Municipality]] in 1877]]
Annual parliamentary sessions were introduced from 1869 and in 1872 ministers were, through a constitutional amendment, required to meet in Parliament to defend their policies. The king, despite having no constitutional right to do so, vetoed the amendment in three successive parliaments. The [[1882 Norwegian parliamentary election|1882 election]] saw the first two parties, the [[Liberal Party (Norway)|Liberals]] and [[Conservative Party (Norway)|Conservatives]], run for election, and subsequently the majority succeeded at [[impeachment (Norway)|impeaching]] the cabinet.<ref>Stenersen: 90</ref> In 1884, King [[Oscar II]] appointed majority leader [[Johan Sverdrup]] as [[Prime Minister of Norway|prime minister]], thus establishing [[parliamentarism]] as the first European country.<ref>Stenersen: 91</ref> The Liberal Party introduced a series of legal reforms, such as increasing the voting rights to about half of all men, settling the [[Norwegian language conflict|language conflict]] by establishing two official written standards, [[Bokmål|Riksmål]] and [[Nynorsk|Landsmål]], introduced [[jury|juries]], seven years of [[compulsory education]] and,<ref name="s92">Stenersen: 92</ref> as the first European country, [[universal suffrage]] for men in 1889.<ref name="s95">Stenersen: 95</ref>

The 1880s and 1890s saw the rise of the labor movement and trade unions became common; the [[Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions]] was established in 1899 and the [[Norwegian Employers' Confederation]] the following year.<ref name="s92" /> The [[Labour Party (Norway)|Labor Party]] had its first parliamentary members elected in 1903. The women's issue became increasingly dominant through the 1880s and they were gradually permitted to take secondary and tertiary education.<ref name="s93">Stenersen: 93</ref> Norwegian support of the union decreased towards the end of the 1890s, especially following the 1897 Swedish abolition of the free trade agreement and the lack of a Norwegian foreign minister. Negotiations of independence commenced, but were not effective because of shifting governments and the Swedish threat of war.<ref name="s95" />