Set aside steel to be carried by European vessel (7)
I believe the answer is:
earmark
'set aside' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'steel to be carried by european vessel' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'steel' could be 'arm' (I've seen this before) and 'arm' is located in the answer.
'european' could be 'e' (abbreviation e.g. EU) and 'e' is found within the answer.
'vessel' could be 'ark' (ark is a kind of vessel) and 'ark' is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for earmark that I've seen before include "Set aside for special purpose" , "Reserve for later use" , "Set aside specifically" , "Allocate for a purpose" , "It identifies the outcome" .)