Greece announced painful new austerity measures Wednesday worth EUR 4.8 billion ($6.5 billion) to deal with a financial crisis that has hammered the euro and unsettled financial markets.

The government also said it wouldn't rule out turning the International Monetary Fund for help.

The decisions to make the cuts were "not taken out of choice but out of necessity", Prime Minister George Papandreou said as he briefed the country's president on the new measures, which are aimed at winning European Union support for Greece and calming financial markets, the AP reported.

The measures contain EUR 2.4 billion ($3.3 billion) in new revenues such as taxes and another EUR 2.4 billion in spending cuts. They include cuts in civil servants' salaries, pension freezes, increasing sales tax, or VAT, from 19 percent to 21 percent and hiking taxes on alcohol, cigarettes, luxury cars, yachts, precious stones and leather goods among others.

The European Union had expressed support for Greece but demanded additional cuts, and Papandreou said the government was "awaiting European solidarity" regarding the new plan. "That is the other side of this agreement. So Europe faces a historic responsibility," he said.

The government hopes endorsement of the latest measures will open the door for a possible financial backstop from other European Union countries and convince bond investors to keep loaning the country money so it can roll over EUR 54 billion in expiring debt.

The European Commission and the top economy official in the 16 nations that use the euro backed Greece's decisions, saying they would help financial stability of Europe's currency union.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and the head of a group of eurozone finance ministers, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, both said they were confident Greece could now reduce its deficit by the required four percentage points this year, and said the country's ambitious program "is now credibly on track."

Germany, which Papandreou will be visiting on Friday to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel, welcomed the new austerity plan as an important step toward restoring market confidence but made clear it was not currently planning to pledge aid to Athens.

Greece has come under intense pressure from the European Union to tame its finances, which include a budget deficit that stands at a staggering 12.7 percent of gross domestic product in 2009. Athens has promised to reduce it to 8.7 percent this year, but many economists consider that goal unrealistic.