Australia said it would import manufactured food products from Europe because it was confident that relaxing its nearly worldwide ban on animal products would not risk importing foot-and-mouth disease.
Australia has been free of the disease since 1872.
The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) said processed meat, prepared meals, acidic processed cheeses and some dairy products from Europe will be allowed into Australia, further easing the blanket ban placed last week on all animal products from exposed countries.
But bans on UK beef would continue because of BSE.
AQIS said there was good scientific evidence the processes used to make meat and animal products reliably kill the virus, which is not believed to affect humans.
"Products have in common some processes, usually heat treatment, which we are very confident kills any [foot-and-mouth] virus there could possibly be", AQIS Executive Director Mr Merryl Stanton said.
The bans originally affected all countries except Canada, the United States and New Zealand.
The US Agriculture Department has labelled the disease one of the most dreaded of all animal diseases because of its potential for economic catastrophe.
It has banned meat and other animal products from the European Union but the restrictions do not apply to cured, cooked or canned meat products or to cheese, yogurt and chocolates.