US writer in recording backing European nation (6)
I believe the answer is:
people
'european nation' is the definition.
'people' can be an answer for 'nation' (I've seen this before). I am not sure about the 'european' bit.
'us writer in recording backing' is the wordplay.
'us writer' becomes 'poe' (I've seen this before).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'recording' becomes 'elp' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'backing' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'poe' placed into 'elp' is 'elpoep'.
'elpoep' in reverse letter order is 'PEOPLE'.
(Other definitions for people that I've seen before include "country folk" , "Population" , "Human beings in general" , "Mortals" , "Persons in general" .)