Athens, Greece ? Hobbled by exorbitant borrowing costs, Greece triggered an emergency aid plan Friday to draw cash from the International Monetary Fund and countries that use the euro — the first test of whether the EU is prepared to bail out one of its members.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou crosses himself before an icon of St. George in a chapel on the Greek Aegean island of Kastellorizo on Friday. He has called for activation of a joint EU and International Monetary Fund financial rescue to pull Greece out of its debt crisis.

The package has enough money to keep Greece from defaulting on its massive debts anytime soon. But Athens still faces years of painful cutbacks and questions about its long-term finances, raising worries that its troubles will affect other indebted members of the European Union and further harm the euro currency.

The three-year plan adopted in Brussels will provide Greece with loans: Euro-zone members will contribute $40 billion at interest rates of about 5 percent, while the IMF will chip in about $13.4 billion this year. Exact figures for the following years have not yet been made public.

European governments made the financial assistance available to fend off a Greek default. It also aims to keep Greece’s troubles from spreading to other financially weak euro-zone governments, such as Portugal and Spain.

The German public, in particular, has been critical of extending assistance to Greece, as Germany recently emerged from years of stagnant growth that saw painful cuts to people’s own pensions and social security benefits. Germany will be the biggest contributor of loans.

Greece is under no illusions that the plan will resolve all the problems of a country that has a debt of $400 billion and other serious fiscal issues. The nation needs to borrow about $72 billion this year alone. It’s already covered about half that amount with bond and treasury bill issues, but has $11.3 billion worth of 10-year bonds maturing on May 19.

But Athens hopes the plan, which will allow it to refinance its debt, gives it breathing space to push through tough reforms.