In any case, no such meeting took place.But John Monks, the general secretary of the TUC, is a grown-up, remarkably free of personal side. He would not say, as he did this week, that it was "bloody stupid" for Mr Blair to issue a joint call with the Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi for a halt to EU legislation on workers' rights, without a better reason than mere pique at being excluded from Mr Blair's pre-Barcelona breakfast invitation list.Mr Monks's worries go to the heart of a central, European-wide argument about how to deal with a widely acknowledged problem: Europe's noticeably slower economic growth than that of the US. As the Treasury's recent White Paper on European Economic Reform puts it succinctly: "Had the EU matched US levels of both employment and output per employee in 2000, its output would have been higher by the equivalent of around £5,000 per person per year The challenge... is to close the gap in economic performance without sacrificing Europe's high levels of social justice."There is nothing in this with which Mr Monks would disagree. The fear in his mind is that at times Mr Blair may indeed show a willingness to sacrifice "Europe's high levels of social justice". The TUC is not unhappy with the EU economic reform process which began at Lisbon and seeks, with the backing of the European Commission, to spread some distinctly British-style ideas about welfare-to-work, for example, to European countries still paying benefits at levels that act as a disincentive to claimants seeking jobs.

But it fears that Mr Blair, who is an ardent champion of less restrictive employment legislation in countries including Germany, France and Italy, to boost EU growth, is slowly seeking, in company with some of the more right-wing European leaders, to strip the EU of the very "social dimension" which converted the British trade union movement to Europe in the first place. Without it, Mr Monks warned, the unions might be rather less keen on the euro.This is a more complex argument than it looks. There is certainly something in the TUC's view that Mr Blair feels more comfortable – on these issues – with right-of-centre politicians like Spain's Jose Maria Aznar than with the broadly social/Christian democrat consensus reflected by the two French presidential candidates. On the other, Mr Blair is privately optimistic that once this year's elections are over, Gerhard Schr?, if he wins a second term as German Chancellor, will drive ahead with labour market reforms. So Mr Blair may not be so far out on a limb as he looks.Secondly, the Government has, by signing the Social Chapter, accepted a raft of legislation broadly welcome to the TUC: parental leave, the works council directive for multinationals, anti-discrimination, health and safety, and measures on information and consultation with employees.

But there is a limit, it argues, if there are to be more jobs, which the unions ought to want. Yes and no, says the TUC: on the last measure, for example, the Government sought for two years to block the directive – hardly an impediment to growth – and has still given no sign of how it proposes to implement it. Will it have to be dragged to the European court, they ask, to be forced to do so properly?What's more, the TUC argues, in Sweden, Denmark and Holland, there is high employment and growth with quite a high level of legislation on workers' rights. Yes, say Mr Blair's supporters, but that's because the unions there were responsible enough to agree to economic and social restructuring that Britain only achieved after a long fight with the unions. Can they yet be trusted to show just that kind of responsibility?Which bring us to another point.