Foreign minister Antonio Tajani has voiced opposition to "a war economy", saying armed forces and weapons should be invested in and used only to "maintain peace".
"I do not identify with the concept of an economy of war and prefer to talks about the about economics of peace, Tajani stated at the launch of a new book on Europe.
"Having armed forces does not mean being a warmonger," he said.
Italy opposes deploying troops to Ukraine to help it turn the tide in the two-year-old conflict with Russia "because we are against war," he said.
"We are not at war with Russia," Tajani said - an affermation he has made on several occasions this month.
Investing in defence does not mean investing in war, Tajani underlined.
"I am against making investments to go to war...we need armed forces and weapons solely to maintain peace," he said.
Tajani's comments came after European Council president Charles Michel wrote in a letter to EU leaders last week urging the bloc to be "defence-ready and put the EU’s economy on a war footing.”
EU leaders at a summit on 21 March agreed to move ahead with work on a European Commission plan to transfer to Ukraine profits of 2.5-3 billion euros per year of profits from Russian central bank assets frozen in Europe after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Ninety percent of the money will be used to buy weapons for Ukraine though the European Peace Facility fund with a first billion euros tranche to be paid in July. The remaining 10 percent of the profits are earmarked for war-ravaged Ukraine's recovery and reconstruction.
Using the proceeds of frozen Russian assets to benefit Ukraine - which Moscow claims would be theft - has broad support among EU nations. Heavyweights Germany and France strongly back the plan.
Using the money to buy weapons is more problematic for some EU states, however, including neutral militarily non-aligned countries such as Malta, Austria and Ireland.
