BRUSSELS, April 15 (Reuters) - National cybersecurity

experts have shelved a vote on a draft EU cybersecurity label

allowing Amazon ( AMZN ), Alphabet's Google and

Microsoft ( MSFT ) to bid for highly sensitive EU cloud

computing contracts to May, people familiar with the matter said

on Tuesday.

The European Union wants to introduce a cybersecurity

certification scheme (EUCS) to vouch for the cybersecurity of

cloud services and help governments and companies pick a secure

and trusted vendor for their cloud computing business.

However, disagreements on whether strict requirements should

be imposed on Big Tech to qualify for the highest level of the

EU cybersecurity label has hampered efforts.

The experts which met on Monday and Tuesday in Brussels, did

not vote on the latest draft of the scheme proposed by EU

cybersecurity agency ENISA in 2020 and tweaked by Belgium which

currently holds the rotating EU presidency, the people said.

After the experts' vote, the next step is an opinion from EU

countries and the final decision by the European Commission.

The latest version scrapped so-called sovereignty

requirements from a previous proposal, which obliged U.S. tech

giants to set up a joint venture or cooperate with an EU-based

company to store and process customer data in the bloc in order

to qualify for the highest level of the EU cybersecurity label.

While Big Tech welcomed dropping the requirements, EU cloud

vendors and businesses such as Deutsche Telekom,

Orange and Airbus criticised the move, and

warned of the risk of unlawful data access by non-EU governments

on the basis of their laws.