 By this point, hopes amongst several of the participants were not high that Europa would be suitable for the envisioned task; the Italians wanted to abandon the ELDO and instead participate in a single European space organisation that would not be as nationally divided as the ELDO.The first launch had been originally planned for November 1966; however, the first two-stage launch occurred in August 1967, while the full three stages (Europa 1) performed its first combined launch in November 1968.During the mid 1960s, Britain had been contributing 40 per cent of the programme's costs.