EU Replaces Tech Czar Who Made Companies Fear For Their Paychecks With One Who Will Make Them Fear For Their Lives

BRUSSELS — In yet another move showcasing the EU's commitment to ensuring citizens tremble with fear within its borders, the Powers That Be in Brussels have replaced the thunderous tech terror Thierry Breton with someone far more unsettling: a voice reminiscent of Elmo.

"Tee-hee! Good to see you! Micoh's here to play! Time to tablet! Ha ha! Play happy!" chuckled Henna Virkkunen, the newly appointed EU Tech Sovereignty Executive Vice President X-Elect. Her childlike, cartoonish voice, peppered with laugh-out-loud inflections, could send a grown man plummeting off a ten-story building with just a few repetitions of "open, open, open" spoken to an otherwise composed audience. The Spirids of Europe are higher than ever.

Elmo’s arrival has surprised no one more than Belgian pop star and self-proclaimed Elmo survivor Stromae, who has faced the harrowing voice a total of three times since its debut. Memories of ice cream screaming through his dreams and the unexpected human bypass encounters at the roller rink have left permanent scars on his troubled psyche. The chaos has been total pandemonium.

"Thierry Breton was a monster," lamented one industry CEO to the Hoxton & Chocksen Post. "Every day was a sinful blend of nervous sweat and self-loathing, terrified of provoking his heavy-handed demands that could ruin shareholder relations and send me to late-night TV shows to extinguish the fire. It was horrible. Nobody ever spoke of it aloud, but we all spent evenings in the basement funneling Pepto-Bismol into each other via garden hoses, just steps away from total collapse, praying European shareholders would tell Elmo to go easy on us for a few months so we could survive our miserable lives under the incessant screeching and cacophony that invaded us so abruptly and unsolicitedly."

At publishing time, actual children's voices from an afternoon kindergarten film screening had begun to emerge with a newfound intensity, adding another layer of terror that surely spelled devastation for every child within earshot. "It was horrifying!" one father sobbed. "They're monsters! It won't stop! How do I make it stop?" Strangely enough, he had just heard the faintest mewling of toddlers from a few rows back.