While much of the EU was preparing to enter the lockdown amid the spreading Covid-19 pandemic, Patrick Utz (Edinburgh), Martin Klatt (University of Southern Denmark), Andrzej Pukszto (Vytautas Magnus Univeristy) and Timofey Agarin (QUB) have met in Vilnius to discuss the impact the changing role of national state over the past decade has had on claim making of minorities settling across national borders. Focussing on intergroup and interstate cooperation, the group has engaged with strategies of ethnic diversity of accommodation that have experienced evolution in the last two decades across Europe, how these impacted the relationship between minorities’ state of kin and state of residence and what impact normative alignment in the EU had on the transformation of cross border minorities’ interactions with state institutions. Beside the intensive work programme, the group benefitted from meetings in the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, Lithuania’s Electoral Commission, with the representatives of Vilnius City Municipality, of Polish speaking community organisations and representatives of Lithuania’s minority media.