Delighted to welcome European, very lofty (8)
I believe the answer is:
elevated
'lofty' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'delighted to welcome european very' is the wordplay.
'delighted' becomes 'elated' (I've seen this before).
'to welcome' means one lot of letters goes inside another (in sense of 'inviting in').
'european' becomes 'e' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'very' becomes 'v' (abbreviation).
'e'+'v'='ev'
'elated' enclosing 'ev' is 'ELEVATED'.
(Other definitions for elevated that I've seen before include "exhilarated" , "Lifted, raised" , "of high status" , "in high place" , "Sent to another place" .)