Small amount of money cut short by European — it’s part of an act (5)
I believe the answer is:
scene
'part of an act' is the definition.
('scene' is part of 'act')
'small amount of money cut short by european' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'small' could be 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size) and 's' is present in the answer.
'amount' could be 'en' (en is a kind of amount) and 'en' is found in the answer.
'money' could be 'c' and 'c' is present in the answer.
'european' could be 'e' (abbreviation e.g. EU) and 'e' is found within the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'it's' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for scene that I've seen before include "Part of Hamlet" , "Locality; embarrassing emotional display" , "View -part of play" , "Setting - carry-on" , "Section of a stage work" .)