Is appearing after European legislator exhibits stress (8)
I believe the answer is:
emphasis
'stress' is the definition.
(I know that stress can be written as emphasis)
'is appearing after european legislator exhibits' is the wordplay.
'appearing after' says to put letters next to each other.
'european' becomes 'E' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'legislator' becomes 'mp' (an MP legislates in parliament).
'exhibits' becomes 'has' (have can mean to exhibit or display).
'e'+'mp'+'has'='emphas'
'is' after 'emphas' is 'EMPHASIS'.
(Other definitions for emphasis that I've seen before include "Stress, accent" , "Intensity of expression" , "Stress or significance" , "Stress given to a word" , "Accentutation" .)