The semantics of programming languages is being studied for a long time, but it is still lacking a unified framework where this can be easily formally specified and then the formal definition is used for experimenting (e.g. in the design process), language analysis (to check language properties), program verification, analysis, and automated testing, and for (correct) implementation. This paper surveys a part of the results obtained by the joint effort made for finding such a framework by the research groups Formal System Laboratory (FSL) from the University of Illinois in Urbana -Champaign (USA), Formal Methods in Software Engineering (FMSE) from the Alexandru Joan Cuza University of Iasi (Romania), and Dreampal from INRIA Lille Nord Europe (France).