Orbán's ex-minister must remove solar park and lakes too. He announced the fine himself — the office never made it public

Former Hungarian minister for construction and transport János Lázár has been fined 12,935,250 forints — roughly €35,700 at the exchange rate of 21 September — and must remove roads, a tennis court, landscaping, lakes and their surroundings, a solar park, and two farm buildings. Everything stands on his land in Batida, which is registered as forest, and the authority has ordered the area restored to its original state. The fine was made public in mid-September by Lázár himself on social media; before that, the authority had said nothing about the proceedings publicly. Átlátszó ↗

What exactly has to disappear

The list of structures to be removed was published by the county authority at Átlátszó's request. Besides the tennis court, which was already known about, it also includes a solar park and lakes — structures hard to reconcile with forest management. The fine is recorded as a sanction for using forest plots without authorization. HVG ↗

The proceedings were conducted by the Bács-Kiskun county authority, whose forestry department also has jurisdiction over the neighboring county of Csongrád-Csanád, where Batida is located. This is not a criminal prosecution or a corruption charge, but administrative proceedings concerning unauthorized structures. Népszava ↗

A timeline that speaks for itself

On 19 December 2025, Átlátszó reported that a tennis court stood next to Lázár's hunting lodge in Batida, even though the land is registered as forest and local building regulations do not permit construction there. According to the outlet, the court was built around 2022, and at the time Lázár did not respond to questions about what permit it was built under. Átlátszó ↗

The outlet asked the authority in February 2026 and again in May. Only the second time did it receive a reply that revealed anything: the authority wrote that it could not provide information about ongoing proceedings. This confirms that proceedings existed, but not when they began. Átlátszó ↗

The start date comes exclusively from Lázár. He claims he built the structures in the forest ten years ago, that the forestry authority had no objection to them until now, and that the proceedings against him were opened ex officio, not on the basis of a complaint, only in May 2026. From this coincidence in timing he concludes that his name is behind the decision. Index.hu ↗

May 2026 was also the month the government changed in Budapest. Péter Magyar took the prime ministerial oath on 9 May, and his cabinet held its first session on 13 May. The coincidence of dates is striking, but proves nothing on its own, and the authority has not commented on the timing in any publicly available statements. Telex ↗

How Lázár defends himself

The former minister claims the structures serve forest management and that staff at the forestry authority told him at the time that no permits were needed. "I was negligent in believing them and not applying to the authorities for a permit," he wrote on social media. He speaks of an oversight, not a deliberate violation of the law, and claims that at his own expense and without state support he planted 25 hectares of forest and did not cut down a single tree for the structures. These figures come from him and have not been independently verified. Portfolio ↗

According to him, the tennis court was built with his consent by the company Grosswiese Zrt.; he says he filled in a drained pond with topsoil and reforested it himself. On the reason for the decision, he wrote that it came about because "I was who I was, and I am who I am: János Lázár," ending the post with a call for Hungarians to hold their heads up. Telex ↗

How Hungarian newsrooms are framing it

The difference between newsrooms on this case is more instructive than the fine itself, but smaller than one might expect. The right-wing Magyar Nemzet, long close to Fidesz, put the fine in its headline as fact and only placed the framing that this is Lázár's own claim in the lede. So it did not conceal the matter. Magyar Nemzet ↗

The business outlet Portfolio took a sharper tone, saying in its headline that the former minister is making excuses. Portfolio ↗

The real difference lies not in the assessment but in who is driving the story. September reports, including 444, were based on Lázár's own social media post and spoke of the fine and demolition. 444.hu ↗

The public only learned six days later that the case also involved a solar park and lakes, not just the tennis court — and that was because Átlátszó requested the exact wording of the decision from the authority. It was this inquiry that pushed the picture of the case beyond a single tennis court. HVG ↗

The company that owns the hunting lodge

According to Átlátszó, the land on which the tennis court stands belongs to Lázár personally and is separate from the assets of Grosswiese Zrt., which owns the hunting lodge itself. The company's ownership structure was the subject of a separate case back in July 2025. At the time, HVG reported that the owner of roughly 22 percent of the shares could not be publicly traced, and that the commercial register lacked any trace of how Lázár's stake grew to 40.93 percent. This is an older layer of the story and is not directly related to the current forestry proceedings. HVG ↗

Why it matters beyond Hungary's borders

Lázár is no ordinary MP. He entered parliament in 2002, led the Fidesz parliamentary group, served as minister heading the Prime Minister's Office from 2014 to 2018 — when he was considered the second-most powerful man in the cabinet — and led the construction and transport ministry until the end of the Orbán era. He returned his mandate effective 20 August 2026, citing responsibility for the election defeat and the party's need for renewal as reasons for leaving. Index.hu ↗

His seat in parliament was taken on 21 September by Paralympic fencing champion Pál Szekeres, until then a member of the European Parliament. On the same day, Átlátszó and HVG published the exact list of structures to be removed. Telex ↗

Read also: Hungarian government to review politicians' assets from the past 20 years

Limits of this account

The case was uncovered and pushed forward by Átlátszó, an outlet that has long focused on the assets of Fidesz politicians. Without its repeated inquiries, the public would not know the extent of the structures — a genuine achievement, but it also means the entire story rests on a single active source and on Lázár's own posts.

In its publicly available statements, the authority has limited itself to the content of the decision. It has not said when the proceedings began or what triggered them, so the claim of a political motive is Lázár's own interpretation — and the opposite thesis, that this was routine procedure entirely unconnected to the change of government, is equally unsubstantiated.

Two things that are being conflated in the Hungarian debate should also be kept separate. The forestry proceedings against Lázár are an administrative sanction for unauthorized structures and are being handled independently. The nationwide review of politicians' assets announced by Péter Magyar is a separate initiative with its own legislation, meant to examine growth in assets, not building permits. Lázár is not exempt from it, since the announced scope also includes former ministers and MPs, but it is not directly connected to this fine.

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Illustration photo: János Lázár in the Hungarian parliament on 2 May 2016, then serving as minister heading the Prime Minister's Office. Photo: Elekes Andor, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.