Pull up gentleman, accepting European is more courageous (7)

'more courageous' is the definition.
('gutsy' can be a synonym of 'courageous')

'pull up gentleman accepting european' is the wordplay.
'pull' becomes 'tug' (tugging is a kind of pulling).
'up' says the letters should be written backwards (in down clue: letters go upwards).
'gentleman' becomes 'sir' (a man may be addressed as sir).
'accepting' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'european' becomes 'E' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'tug' in reverse letter order is 'gut'.
'sir' placed around 'e' is 'sier'.
'gut'+'sier'='GUTSIER'

'is' acts as a link.