  In October 1997, the Italian and Dutch GRB teams started a collaboration on
ESO optical follow-up of rapidly and accurately localized GRBs. Subsequently,
starting April 1, 2000, this collaboration was extended to astronomers from
other countries, who contributed their expertise for the creation of a
Consortium committed to the study of GRB counterparts and host galaxies at
optical and near-infrared wavelengths. The collaboration aims at the joint
exploitation of the observations taken within an ESO Large Programme approved
for the two-year period April 1, 2000 - March 31, 2002. Here we describe
history and organization of this Consortium, the goals of the ESO Large
Programme, and the main results obtained up to now with ESO telescopes.
