I am curious if this is correct: The EU has a population roughly of similar size to that of the US, and the EU had (when it included the UK) an economy roughly the size of the US in terms of GDP (https://www.thebalance.com/world-s-largest-economy-3306044). Is that right? (I just looked this up via Google)

Also, Discussion of Europe's lack of mega companies / weakness is often a theme here, and there are many fair points to be made about its lack of entrepreneur culture and unfriendliness to business. But I'd like to point out that it's worth to think about more than just economies in comparing the EU to the rest of the world. So let me mention a couple of other things worth noting:

Stuff like GDPR or the currently-in-the-works AI act (not to mention all the other rights and wellfare benefits common in much of the EU) don't help the EU's economy but do benefit its citizens in many ways (as far as I am aware).

A bunch of countries in the EU (looks like about 12) has a happiness index score higher or the same as the US (https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/happiness/Europe/). Many of its countries also have higher life expectancy (https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/).