(Bloomberg) -- Italy’s new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said her government will make its voice heard strongly in proposing reforms to the European Union, while pledging to respect the bloc’s financial rules and criticizing the strategy of the European Central Bank.

“Only a country that fully respects the rules can have sufficient authority to demand at the EU and western level that the cost of the international crisis be more equally divided,” the premier said in her first speech as Italy’s most right-wing leader since World War II.

“Italy will make its voice be loudly heard within the European Union as a founding member should,” Meloni said. “Not to slow down or to sabotage integration, but to make sure it is best placed to react to crisis and foreign threats.”

Meloni’s task includes steering the euro area’s third-biggest economy through an energy crisis that threatens to inflict a recession. Challenges include a debt mountain of about 150% of output that has become a perennial headache for the ECB and foreign partners.

In a speech that lasted over an hour Meloni ranged from EU rules, to her own political roots, cannabis, and a quote from Steve Jobs. She came out in support of Ukraine and condemned racial laws introduced by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1938 as “the lowest point in Italian history and a shame that will mark our people forever.”

Striking a defiant tone, the nationalist premier told the lower house of parliament: “The Italian people should not be taught lessons from outside.” 

She left little doubt to investors that her government will implement right-wing measures including tax cuts for the wealthy, and curbs to migration. Italy’s 10-year yield premium over its German peer pared a decline, leaving the spread three basis points lower at 223 basis points.

Lawmakers will hold a confidence vote Tuesday evening, confirming a parliamentary majority made up of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, the anti-migrant League of Matteo Salvini, and the center-right Forza Italia of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Toward the end of her speech, Meloni portrayed herself as an outsider. “I am an underdog, one of those who to succeed needs to beat all expectations, and this is what we expect to do: beat all expectations,” she said.

--With assistance from Tommaso Ebhardt, Zoe Schneeweiss, Alessandro Speciale and James Hirai.

(Updates with further remarks from fifth paragraph)

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