Feel strong desire to be free of European story (4)
I believe the answer is:
yarn
'story' is the definition.
('yarn' can be a synonym of 'story')
'feel strong desire to be free of european' is the wordplay.
'feel strong desire' becomes 'yearn'.
'to be free of' is a deletion indicator.
'european' becomes 'e' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'yearn' with 'e' taken away is 'YARN'.
(Other definitions for yarn that I've seen before include "Sham" , "Cord of twisted fibres, wool say" , "Not fully credible story" , "Exaggerated story or spun thread" , "Fabricated" .)