German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble attends a presentation of a newly designed 2-Euro coin at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany February 10, 2017. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Friday the European Union must take on a bigger international role, saying the answer to crises from security to climate change, was to stick together and stop relying on the United States.

The veteran member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government and committed European, said Europe had waited too long for the United States to act and make up for deficiencies in EU policy.

“It is high time that we think more about the international role of Europe, apart from all the homework we have to do within the EU,” he wrote in a column for the Funke media group on the first day of the international Munich Security Conference.

Germany, for decades haunted by its legacy of starting World War Two and the Holocaust, is gradually taking on a more active role, for example, by participating in more military missions abroad.

“More Americans are asking, not wrongly, and not just since the latest presidential election, whether duties and responsibilities are distributed appropriately in the transatlantic alliance,” he wrote.

U.S. President Donald Trump has raised questions about his commitment to NATO and wants EU members, such as Germany, to increase defense spending.

Schaeuble rejected retreating into nationalist or isolationist policies.

“The big questions of our time - whether about security, climate protection, migration or competition, are not answered by going it alone,” he wrote. “For us, German responsibility means acting together. The European Union is indispensable.”