Farmers protests, staff shortages at Schiphol airport and the problems on the housing market continued to dominate the Dutch News headlines in July and August.

Images of reversed Dutch flags, motorway blockades and piles of suitcases waiting to be sorted led various papers to ask if the Netherlands was in national crisis. The AD in particular said the Netherlands was struggling to deal with a record number of major headaches.

The floods of 1953, the paper said, led to ‘enormous solidarity’ with the victims and the feeling that such a thing should never happen again. But crises have now become ‘a test of solidarity’, Leiden University professor Arjen Boin told the paper.

Fledgling far right broadcaster ON, which had controversially been admitted to the public system, was fined for producing fake news. It has been fined several more times since then.

There were also the first signs that the overheated housing market was beginning to cool down as average mortgages fell.

The first Pride Amsterdam boat parade also took place following two years of coronavirus and was celebrated across the city.

But there was tragedy too, as a lorry ploughed off the road and into a village barbecue where a group of people were celebrating summer. Six people were killed instantly and a seventh died later in hospital.