European facing question — competent and calm (7)
I believe the answer is:
equable
'calm' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'european facing question competent' is the wordplay.
'european' becomes 'E' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'facing' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'question' becomes 'qu' (abbreviation).
'competent' becomes 'able' (similar in meaning).
'e'+'qu'+'able'='EQUABLE'
'and' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for equable that I've seen before include "Uniform - even" , "Not extreme" , "Placid; unvarying" , "Calm, even-tempered" , "composed" .)