This article looks at Estonia and Latvia to investigate how minority activists understand and respond to changing opportunity structures at the European level after their countries joined the European Union and conditionalities pressures faded. Using a combined quantitative–qualitative approach, we show that minority activists have no illusions about the EU’s capacity (and willingness) to intervene in their favor, but at the same time they are not likely to abandon the European arena. Rather, they display what we call “critical trust” towards the EU – a change in the quality of trust rather than only in its quantity.