Career encompasses European court area (7)
I believe the answer is:
hectare
'area' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'career encompasses european court' is the wordplay.
'career' becomes 'hare' (both can mean to run fast).
'encompasses' indicates putting letters inside (some letters encompass or go around others).
'european' becomes 'E' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'court' becomes 'ct' (abbreviation used in road names).
'e'+'ct'='ect'
'hare' going around 'ect' is 'HECTARE'.
(Other definitions for hectare that I've seen before include "10,000 squaer metres" , "Extent" , "Teacher of metric land measure" , "Metric unit of area" , "Metric land area" .)