Amsterdam’s new council coalition is set to be a combination of Progressief Nederland – formerly the GroenLinks-PvdA alliance – and the liberal democratic party D66, the same mix as over the past four years.

Talks on forming a new alliance are underway, and PN leader Zita Pels has opted to move on with D66, which came second in this month’s local elections with eight seats on the 45-seat council. The newly-merged PN has 17.

There had been talk of forming a new alliance between PN, the right-wing liberal VVD and the pro-animal PvdA. Others had hoped for a coalition including a string of minor parties on the left, but that, the negotiators said, was likely to be too unstable.

The situation is much less clear cut in The Hague, where local party Hart voor Den Haag emerged as by far the biggest after the vote, with 16 seats.

Two parties could form a majority coalition with HvDH – D66 which won eight seats and PN which won seven, and HvDH has expressed a preference for a single coalition partner.

But D66 has rejected the offer of talks because of the major differences between the parties. Instead D66 has told leader Richard de Mos to talk first to parties which are closer to it politically, such as the VVD, CDA and Denk.

Should those talks fail to reach agreement on a new coalition, D66 says it is prepared to talk, but only if PN is included as well.