Speakers praised the manner in which Finland had been a pathfinder in the forefront of parliamentary development.

The session decided on creating an independent international relations and EU affairs institute. It will begin its activities next year.

Celebrations began on Thursday morning with a church service held at Helsinki's Lutheran Cathedral. Events culminated in the evening with a centenary performance by the National Opera.

Lipponen: Finland Made History Parliamentary Speaker Paavo Lipponen said Finland had made world history a century ago. A law was enacted then giving both the franchise and the right to stand for parliament to all those who had reached the age of 24 years. The first women were elected to parliament in 1907 and the country's first woman minister, Miina Sillanpää, was appointed in 1926. Lipponen noted such achievements would have been impossible without a firm national society and popular movement. Strong Democratic Tradition Although the present parliament building dates back to 1931, Finnish democratic traditions existed even before independence from the Russian Empire. One hundred years ago, Finland was an autonomous Grand Duchy within Czarist Russia. At that time a legislative assembly, called the “Diet” represented a minority of the population. But in June 1906 a reform of parliament and electoral law gave Finland the first modern democratically representative governmental institution in the world. Universal and equal suffrage gave all adult men and women the vote. Long before other democracies, women in Finland were the first to achieve political equality and full rights of citizenship. But Finnish democracy has had its political up and downs during the last one hundred years and even been threatened with complete extinction. Under Soviet attack during the Winter War, parliamentarians were forced to evacuate the government to the safer surroundings of Kauhajoki in Ostrabothnia. In the ensuing cold war years, parliament had little say in matters of foreign policy. They were kept as the sole responsibility of the President. In the eighties, Finland slowly passed from a presidential to a parliamentary-led democracy. The new constitution of 2000, following Finnish membership of the EU, sealed this development. Three years later, for the first time, the Finnish Parliament and not the President, chose the nation's Prime Minister. YLE24