The Pay Transparency Directive did not, figuratively speaking, appear yesterday. When it was adopted, Estonia was also governed by a Reform Party-led government and preparations for its implementation have been long and thorough. That is why the claim that an insurmountable problem has suddenly been discovered — the ghost of administrative burden — is not convincing.

The Pay Transparency Directive is not an ideological document of "orders and prohibitions," as Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna has claimed. No, it does not tell employers how much they must pay, but something far more basic: if people are paid differently for work of equal value, there must be a justification. This is not about ideology or mandates.

In a country that has long emphasized market logic and treated employees and employers as though they were equal parties to a contract, we still cannot ensure even the most basic thing: equal treatment. Yet that same market logic clearly says that better access to information makes the market function more efficiently, instead of distorting it. Ensuring that should therefore be a priority for the government.

Estonia has the highest gender pay gap in the European Union and slowing down implementation of the directive in such a situation essentially amounts to accepting that inequality.

Moreover, the government has floated the idea that, if necessary, Estonia should rather pay fines than increase the administrative burden on businesses. It is an extraordinarily cynical position, one that means the state is willing to spend taxpayers' money in order not to implement measures that would help protect the fundamental rights of workers — who are themselves taxpayers.

Critics of the directive talk mainly about bureaucracy, but when you look at the facts, that argument is not very convincing. The reporting requirement applies only to larger employers — roughly 1 percent of all companies — including the public sector where salaries are already public anyway. Many of the processes can be automated and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications has already planned for that.

There is also criticism of the requirement to create transparent pay systems based on objective criteria. But shouldn't that be the norm? Do we really want to defend the right to pay people differently for the same work without any justification?

Another common argument is that the problem exists, but that it can be solved with "less bureaucracy." That sounds good, but it leaves out an important fact: this has already been tried. For years, efforts have focused on voluntary measures and raising awareness. The result? Estonia still has the highest gender pay gap in Europe.

If the current approach has not worked, it is not credible to claim that the same approach will suddenly start working.

In my everyday practice, this issue is not abstract. These are specific cases: women who return to work after parental leave and discover that their salary has essentially been frozen in time. Or situations in which a man has been hired to replace a woman on leave — at a significantly higher salary. Pay transparency makes inequality visible.

And that is precisely why such measures provoke resistance. They force us to confront a problem that, until now, it has been convenient not to see.

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