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Right now the E.U. has the largest GDP according to everyone but the CIA. The EU, however, is not bound together tightly enough. This is the age-old argument which has been argued since the end of the Articles of Confederation. I'm with Al Hamilton here, it's better to have one strong national government than a confederation of independent states.
Both the EU and the US will survive for quite some time, and China will be around too, but the EU and China have internal politics which will shuffle around for a time, for example China shifting to a democracy sometime soon, which will slow their growth while the US already has its politics generally down pat and thus will continue to prosper at the same pace.
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I think this is a gross overgeneralisation. If we restrict the argument to the EU and the US disregarding China, then I think over the next five years the US is going to be in for a great deal of trouble...its also pretty even money that a recession may even be on the cards for the US economy.
The EU may be a little fragmented in terms of policy but that is its strength as well as its weakness.
Because member states can have very different opinions you get a democracy within the EU that is unrivalled anywere else in the world including the US.
The EU is also bigger population wise and is still expanding. Typically member states like the baltic states, latvia, estonia, lithuania have economies which are rocketing ahead at blistering speed, as wage rates and prices in those countries catch up to the more developed nations within the EU. At the same time countries like germany and france are not nearly so economically active and probably won't be until the poorer countries catch up a bit making the interEU states trade balances a bit more even. You have to remember the EU is in its infancy and the growing pains will be there for about 50 years or so I would guess but I believe its actually in the long run going to be much more competitive than the states can be especially if the Euro gets adopted as a reserve currency which will be the equivalent to a stab in the heart for the American way of life. It seems obvious to me that the EU will outperform the states IF it manages to take over a significant portion of the oil trade which is in the process of occurring, check the Iranian oil bourse thread in politics.