NTEU was originally founded in 1988 as the "Information Committee on Norway and the EC" (Norwegian: Opplysningsutvalget om Norge og EF) and was the latest of a number of organizations opposing the European Communities.

[2] Following slow progress in the 1960s, including a French veto against British membership, the Norwegian debate about the EC gradually escalated, culminating in a divisive[5][6] 1972 referendum.

The campaign was primarily between competing interests; on the one hand businesses, the Labor Party leaders and the trade union leadership seeking economic integration and growth, and on the other hand rural voters like farmers and fishermen fearful of foreign competition, along with leftists critical of ceding sovereignty to the EU.

[1][5][6] NTEU lobbied the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, which now turned and opposed the EU, distributed their newspaper and encouraged people to vote.

In 2018, they filed suit against the government[8] alleging that the cession of sovereignty to the EU was so great that it requires a three-fourths vote under the Norwegian Constitution's paragraph 115.