DutchNews Podcast DutchNews

The coalition talks are in limbo as Geert Wilders turns up the Timmermans Threat level to 11 and the parties try to turn an refugee drama into a crisis. Global warming isn't putting off Dutch holidaymakers, but the cost of travel is making their eyes water. Measles cases are on the rise as the vaccination rate falls. Feyenoord's manager looks set to jump ship while Alex Kroes and the Ajax board look for a creative way out of their death spiral. And we explain why Germany is no longer a happy hunting ground for Dutch train operators and safecrackers.

In the week that Hugo de Jonge revealed that the Binnenhof renovation will cost €2bn and last until 2028, we ask if there is any chance of a government being in place by then. The king thanks his Spanish counterpart for putting up Princess Amalia in Madrid after she was threatened by gangsters, while Prinsjesdag is set for a populist makeover. In a bad week for pensioners, six people in their 70s go on trial for distributing a suicide powder, while canal boat tours fall foul of Amsterdam's anti-tourism drive. Flower growers get creative at the Bloemencorso, and we explain how a Dutch socialist heathen architect rekindled an Olympic tradition.

Crisis club Ajax plumb new depths of hubris as their ramshackle defending on the pitch is eclipsed by a flurry of own goals in the boardroom. Down the road in The Hague, the manure hits the fan in the coalition talks as the negotiators try to put together the puzzle pieces. A group of pensioners go on trial accused of forming a criminal organisation to distribute suicide powders. Cyclists now account for two in five road deaths, but most would still rather be seen dead than in a safety helmet. And campaigners score a major victory in their efforts to clean up 800 tonnes of debris from the bottom of the Waddenzee.

Groningen is up in arms over the senate's decision to pause the great gas switch-off, in a week when several government plans perish in the upper house. Czech claims that Russia has infiltrated the Dutch parliament leave MPs with an intriguing missed Thierry to solve. Ajax's new chief executive scores a devastating own goal as the club's season of misery continues. The government's efforts to remove non-Ukrainans who fled the war turns into a legal minefield, while oil giant Shell appeals against a court order to clean up after its customers.

After agreeing on a form of government that keeps Pieter Omtzigt on board and Geert Wilders muzzled, the four right-wing parties finally get down to business. Two new negotiators are given the task of producing a programme for government within eight weeks, but the only thing the leaders agree on is that the discussions will be "tough". The PVV scuppers a bill on animal welfare, sweeping changes are made to the law on sex offences and Dilan Yesilgöz is told to switch the air-raid sirens back on. Schiphol airport and KLM are rapped over the knuckles by the courts. And sad news in sport as Emmen withdraw from the shirt sponsorship deal that set the hunebeds buzzing.

A breakthrough of sorts in the coalition talks as the four parties agree to form a "programme cabinet", which sounds like a piece of charity shop furniture. Protests against the visit of Israel's president sparks cast a shadow over the long-awaited opening of Amsterdam's Holocaust Museum. The SGP starts a crusade after learning that the government has ordered four new submarines to be built in France. And drug-running winger Quincy Promes's flight from justice appears to have come crashing down to earth on the streets of Dubai.